'Angry' kids who can't learn turning to crime, principal says

John Southon of Trundle Central School is appealing to the NSW government to fund satellite paediatrician centres in regional towns so children don't slip through the cracks.

Children in Dubbo and the Central West are waiting more than two years in some cases for appointments to see paediatricians and psychologists to diagnose issues including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and hearing problems.

Around one to two students in every year intake at Trundle were requiring early intervention.

Mr Southon said the resulting paediatric crisis "absolutely" lead to more youth crime.

"If you've got a child that has a disability and that stops them from reading, and they become an angry young man, where do you think that's going to go as a society?" Mr Southon told ACM.

His message for NSW Health: "If we spend one dollar on early intervention I can almost guarantee we'll save three on policing and health care."

Teachers are often at the forefront of the paediatric healthcare crisis, and can be the ones identifying the issues and sharing them with parents before the parents start seeking further health advice and then land on wait lists.

Mr Southon said lack of services for children in the Central West was "dire" and was affecting learning outcomes for children that could impact the rest of their lives.

"I can only see the situation getting worse," Mr Southon said.

"In the 34 years I've been with the Department of Education, I've never seen the bush in such dire straits as far as services to country kids.

"We're creating a society where if you've got money and geographic advantage, i.e. living in the city, you get the services, and if you don't, you go on a long waiting list and the ramifications of that have been seen in country towns across Australia."

Mr Southon said the majority of issues affecting kids' learning in early years were preventable because they were "simple as far as interventions that can be put in place" - if there were only enough resources.

"Students are coming to school presenting with disabilities and learning problems, behavioural problems, mental health problems, that could have been, if not solved then severely reduced," Mr Southon said.

He was one of many teachers who had been "screaming for years" to solve the problem and feared there would be a "serious incident" before something was done.

"We're spending so much money on trying to control the evils of society ... through policing, and that's part of the solution, but the biggest solution is early intervention - to get in and reduce these problems before they become systemic and to a stage that we really can't make a difference.

"You consider the frustration of a child sitting in a classroom that can't access the curriculum, can't understand or has such severe anxiety or mental health problems or even something as simple as a hearing loss, and they can't even hear the teacher."

The school hasn't been able to access an audiologist this year.

The issue is one for which children's health charity Royal Far West has been barracking.

Up to 60 per cent of the children referred to the organisation's Manly clinic come from regional NSW, and now it has a wait list of its own in some areas.

The organisation is campaigning NSW Health to provide funding for two new rural paediatric assessment clinics, in Dubbo and Wagga.

This would allow more children to access paediatricians closer to home.

The clinic in Dubbo would have on-the-ground staff and visiting clinicians, supported by telehealth services to ensure efficient and regular services for children with developmental challenges.

Royal Far West CEO Jacqueline Emery said the reason more children were requiring intervention was complex.

"We are hearing of and witnessing in our own services huge increases in complexity in children - ballooning behavioural concerns, violence, mental health concerns, child protection concerns, disengagement from learning in the last three to four years," Ms Emery told ACM.