Our Team

Natasha Robinson is The Australian’s health editor and writes across medicine, science, health policy, research, and lifestyle. Natasha has been a journalist for more than 20 years in newspapers and broadcasting, has been recognised as the National Press Club’s health journalist of the year and is a Walkley awards finalist and a Kennedy Awards winner. She is a former Northern Territory correspondent for The Australian with a special interest in Indigenous health. Natasha is also a graduate of the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board’s Diploma of Law and has been accepted as a doctoral candidate at QUT’s Australian Centre for Health Law Research, researching involuntary mental health treatment and patient autonomy.

Natasha Robinson

Latest

APPEALS NIGHTMARECaring

Amanda Coll with her son Finley and the device he uses to communicate. Finley is quadriplegic, has severe cerebral palsy and is non-verbal. He uses as assisted device in order to be able to speak, but the NDIS is refusing to allow him to purchase a new device after his old one broke. Picture Matt Turner.

NDIS says no to giving Finley new voice

Thousands of claims just like Finley Coll’s are being fought in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal by people with a disability. There can be ‘long, crazy process’ before that happens.

Natasha Robinson

sources of wasteCaring

19 March 2025; a collage of a silhouette of a woman in a wheelchair with moody weather in the background. Collage. Sources: iStock. Ratio 4:3.

NDIS spends $1bn-plus on fees for middlemen managers

Billions of dollars a year in NDIS funding is being soaked up by middlemen plan managers and support co-ordinators who are arguably no longer necessary and drain taxpayer funds that should be spent directly on people with disabilities.

Natasha Robinson

healthMental Health

20/12/24: PRAMUDIE GUNARATNE and Ian Korbel are public sector psychiatrists who are leading 150 staff specialists in tendering their resigntations as the mental health system in the state teeters on the brink of collapse. John Feder/The Australian.

Hospitals ‘risk losing psych training accreditation’

NSW public hospitals risk losing their accreditation to train junior psychiatrists as the speciality’s medical college performs emergency inspection visits amid a huge shortage of senior staff specialists.

Natasha Robinson

Secret planHealth

Mass resignations of psychiatrists have rocked the NSW mental health system. Picture: Getty Images

Mass cuts to mental health workforce planned amid staff exodus

NSW public health districts were pursuing a secret policy of swingeing cutbacks to the state’s public psychiatry workforce even as a recruitment crisis was crippling critically underfunded services.

Natasha Robinson

COMMENTARYThe Weekend Australian Magazine

a 3d rendering of prominent pink female gender symbol and a syringe with pink liquid drug inside of it

Why I changed my mind about Menopausal Hormone Therapy

The advocacy of more than 2000 pissed-off menopause warriors pushed me to research and rethink the role of MHT in keeping women healthy in their later years.

Natasha Robinson

MAGAZINEThe Weekend Australian Magazine

5/12/24: Caitlin Delaney has had ovarian cancer for eight years and desperately wants to see treatments developed in future for this deadliest of cancers. John Feder/The Australian.

The end of cancer: cell therapy breakthroughs take us to the edge of a cure

Rapid immunotherapy advancements could relegate killer cancers, such as the dangerous and deadly ovarian cancer, to the status of a ‘chronic disease’.

Natasha Robinson

‘COLLATERAL DAMAGE’Medical

Queensland man Clayton Skewis pictured before he experienced a massive stroke in 2019

Clayton’s case: what happens when stroke care fails

Technological advances in stroke care include remote robotic surgery, clot-busting medicine and new thrombectomy techniques. None was there to stop the damage for Clayton Skewis.

Natasha Robinson

SUPPLY FIXHealth

Hands, IV drip and saline solution in hospital, clinic and healthcare facility for health and healing. Doctor, nurse and closeup of medical equipment for intensive care, life support and medicine

$40m deal shores up sovereign saline fluid supply

Australia will have expanded onshore manufacturing of IV saline fluids after the federal government struck a $40m deal to expand onshore manufacturing of the critical medicine.

Natasha Robinson

BreakthroughMedical

Andrew Morrish, 63, has been living with multiple scleroris for 24 years and hopes to see a cure in his lifetime, as research from the Florey Institute proves a vital link between inflammation and the mutation of neurons in MS sufferers. Picture: Alex Coppel.

Australian researchers offer hope for MS sufferers

Australian scientists have for the first time opened the way for targeted and regenerative therapies that could prevent severe disease for multiple sclerosis patients

Natasha Robinson

MAGAZINEThe Weekend Australian Magazine

EMBARGO FOR TWAM, 01 MARCH 2025. FEE MAY APPLY. L-R Alex Dudley, Jane Dudley and Dr Gordon Parker. Psychiatrist Dr Gordon Parker wrote A Gut Mood Solution and is calling for clinical trials after Jane Dudleys Bipolar 1 condition was successfully treated with a gut microbiome transplant, donated by her husband Alex. Photo: Nic Walker / TWAM

Faecal transplant cured Jane’s bipolar. Could dementia be next?

Medicos examining the link between our guts and our brains say if mental health illnesses can be treated and cured via ‘poo transplants’ then neurogenerative diseases could too.

Natasha Robinson

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/author/natasha-robinson