LITTLE BOY LOST...and lack of equality of care and justice in Australia for the vulnerable
An article this week by Claire Campbell (ABC News 14th February 2022) Looks at a present inquest into a little five year old boy who died in his special needs classroom in a school in South Australia - it happened in 2017 and the family is still suffering and needing to know answers. Noted in the article
“Lucas Latouche Mazzei was in reception at Henley Beach Primary School when he choked to death on a nectarine stone in March 2017.
The five-year-old, who was in the special needs class, was watching his favorite cartoon The Gruffalo and was the only student in the classroom at the time.
The inquest into his death heard the other students had left the classroom to go to a science lesson, but Lucas had stayed behind because he was known to put "anything and everything" in his mouth due to his global development delay.”
The article notes that the school mentioned this about the little boy and yet if that is so why was he not receiving extra supervision? Why was he on his own? Swear to God that so many in disabilities are ignored when they need extra help and attention and the places where they are even schools get extra funding from the government if they have a special needs class of kids.
Yet they fail to do the fundamentals of caring for a kid with a disability! Just because the little boy Lucas, was prone to eat things – for that very reason he should have had extra supervision not less! He should not be blamed for dying because he had global delay and needed extra care – he should for that very reason be given the extra care.
Why does a kid get left alone in front of a TV at a school that is meant to be looking after and teaching him? Left alone with no supervision, all alone – the level of care was at zilch then – and he was in need of extra care because he was special needs. How despicable of the school and teachers and how sad for this family. Their dear little son gone.
Why do the teachers work in special needs classrooms if they do not listen to a child’s condition and consider what that child needs? In help in supervision at all times? Our children with disabilities are at risk at all times of being hurt, of hurting themselves if not supervised yes and of choking.
Many deaths up to half in disability residential care are preventable but no one bats any eyelid as if that is the price you the victim pay for having a disability. How shameful to think that the a school is taking on special needs children and then cannot be bothered doing the necessary work and duty of care which will be extra above what normal or non disability children need. And yet we know even the average child needs supervision and can choke and that especially a preschooler is also at risk of this.
Many daycares and preschools have CCTV cameras to protect the children from harm in their centres not just from accidents but from mistreatment or neglect by those who work there.
There should be cameras in special needs classrooms – why didn’t that little boy cry out when he was choking? Perhaps he could not because of the choke and also maybe he was non verbal. Our disability and non verbal adult children are so much more at risk of being harmed, neglected or suffering misadventure due to lack of supervision because they cannot speak up or explain what distress they are in or call out for help. If a child is choking they cannot cry out anyway and there is no way they can help themselves or call for help - Little Lucas simply should not have been left alone.
In this case the teachers had not even started CPR on this little boy they were so inept at First Aid and apparently in SA schools teachers do not have to have first aid training. They slapped the boys back to get the nectarine stone out of his throat, and held him upside down. Was that the best they could do? Not enough first aid training - well that’s helpful. Who could trust the schools then? Or the special needs teachers and classes? How could such a case of neglect be let to go like this – and why was their no manslaughter case since the little boy died?
The teachers should have been charged. Yet now five years later still no prosecutions and no come back on the school. The justice system in Australia, needs to start giving equal justice even for the vulnerable yes even those special needs.
Noted in the article (ABC News 14 February 2022) “
At the time of Lucas's death, none of the persons present had completed the course specifically designed for people working with children," Ms Roper told the inquest.
"The Department for Education did not, and does not, require this level of training to be undertaken by teachers in public primary schools.”
I can scarcely comprehend this as when my daughters worked in childcare they had to do a first aid course, and when one became a teacher here in NSW she had to do First Aid. It is a matter of course and expected what is wrong with South Australia? They were the ones trialing cameras in disabilities houses successfully last year and Age Care homes, but I think they will need to put the cctv cameras in Special needs classes, for the children's protection too and at the least make all their teachers learn First Aid. My son himself needs much supervision and yet the workers when he was at a respite house and at day program took their tempers out on him for having that fragile x disability – and he does not have high behaviours and is a sweet boy - but the workers had no patience and no heart or cared, even though that is why he was there in the first place. They were low grade, they had no patience, they were uneducated and they were in it for the money – looking after my precious son meanwhile getting paid. The disability providers taking as much as they could from my son's funds and one of them lying and creating false contracts at the same time.
Schools need to be accountable for how they treat the vulnerable in their disability classes and providers of care and day programs need to be made accountable. We need the level of training for disability workers to be lifted and to have actual disability trained people running the programs and houses not just business people who may as well be running retail business so little is their level of commitment and care to the well being of those in disabilitie.
Similarly, teachers in a special needs class should have some kind of higher education at work here and decent character and definitely first aid training. They should not have resentment or contempt for the precious children they are meant to be helping and teaching yet they themselves are lacking in ability skills or character for such a job but still take it on. Such despicable teachers or ignorant teachers with no training and no heart should be thrown out of special needs classes.
The justice system is also not just toward those with special needs, noted in the article that the family could not even access legal aid for a lawyer to attend the inquest for their son’s death. How cruel is our society and legal system to not even help the victims of a school’s neglect and failed duty of care leading to their child’s death! https://www.abc.net.au/.../sa-coronial-inquest.../100814226
It was noted in the article by Tim Dornin (Canberra Times 14 February 2022) that a previous Australian of the year, Paul Charman, took on this boy’s family pro bono to help represent them at the inquest – should not all people be allowed to have lawyers whether they have money or not? Or is this discrimination again against those with little money and those with disability children? Things need to change this is in itself a gross injustice in Australian society.
…“on Tuesday, the Coroner's Court heard Lucas's parents had been refused funding to have a lawyer represent them in the inquest."I've spoken to the [Legal Services] Commission… they refused funding and said to go to the Attorney-General, who refused funding, who said, 'Go back to the commission,' " their lawyer Paul Charman told the court."And the commissioner seemed to indicate that strangely there's no funding other than for when someone might incriminate themselves."We can't do anything about it; it's regrettable but that's the situation we're in." Mr Charman said he had already promised the family he would represent them before the funding application was declined, and said he would continue to do so pro bono.” (ABC News 14 February 2022)
Also noted in the article is the inequality of legal representation in courts for the everyday family who needs justice for the death of their child – why should only the wealthy have lawyers? ‘South Australian barrister Claire O'Connor SC said it was "extremely unfair" that families were left to fend for themselves if they wanted to be represented during an inquest.
"My view has always been that there should always be funding for family members where a child has died because there is a range of benefits that a lawyer can provide in that environment," she said. "Doctors, nurses, midwives, teachers, correctional service officers are always funded by very skilled legal teams often paid for by unions, the state government or by insurers, and yet families … are often struggling, at a time of grief, to try and get the funds together to pay for a legal team or to find someone who is willing to do it for free." ‘
How sad that to have justice in the death of your child due to the actions and neglect of others, you have to have money or you do not get that due justice…We need to change this inequality in our justice system – all people should equally get justice including the vulnerable in disabilities, and the children in disabilities.
Anndrea x
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