Patients with treatment-resistant depression will no longer have to pay thousands of dollars for a last-resort therapy following the success of a long-running campaign for Medicare funding.  

From November, the Federal Government will fund four Medicare items to provide access to repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) for an estimated 90,000 adult patients with major depressive disorder over the next four years. 

Announced in last week’s federal budget, to be eligible, patients must have tried at least two different classes of antidepressant medications along with psychological therapy but remain unwell.  

Dr Salam Hussain — chair of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists’ section for ECT and neurostimulation — called it a good step forward.