Afford and other Providers have Broken Trust of parents and participants in disabilities services…where does it ever end?
When will the federal government listen and make the NDIS accountable and the providers accountable for what happens when the vulnerable are harmed in disabilities – why are there literally no prosecutions for those who hurt and abuse these vulnerable ones?
When I attended the hearings at the Royal Commission on Monday 16th May investigating the organization Afford disabilities…it was disturbing and heartbreaking for me a mother of a son who is non verbal with a disability, to hear mothers talk about what had happened to their sons by the disabilities worker from Afford. The male worker had been caught abusing and filming those in his charge – their sons – not only did he not give duty of care he willfully instead harmed them.
This male worker has been now charged and sentenced and is in prison for three years. He was doing one on one work for Afford disabilities, in one of the boys’ own home, as the mother named Sally (pseudonym) outlined at the hearing, that he would come in every morning and get her son Jason, ready for day program while the rest of the family had to go to work. They trusted the worker. He would then drive their son to the day program and home. The family never knew that this worker was filming their son and taking pictures of him naked in their own home. They were unaware for at least a good year until the Surry Hills police called them on the phone and told them their son had been abused. The reason the police found out was because the worker had filmed everything on his phone and somehow they caught him, maybe he put it on the internet. The boy, Jason’s, mother would have been shocked to get a call from the police. Then to find out this had been going on just breaks you. WE parents of those children with disabilities worry ourselves sick over our children, we try to do everything we can to help them we know they are vulnerable, we are hypervigilant and yet still the wolves like this worker manage to sneak in and hurt our children. You even need CCTV in your own home, as illustrated by this case, because workers are so untrustworthy that may come in and still harm our children. How despicable.
All the boasting by providers like Afford about how they care, how they have a policy would never allow abuse and then they do the opposite. Lying words indeed. All the pushing and conning to make parents pay up out of need for their children and then taking their funding if they know it is a certain amount they make the charges the amount of the whole plan their child has received in funding in other words they take all they can and the whole lot of the funding of the persons plan if they can.
As one mother said at the Royal Commission investigation -Afford disabilities even tried to charge more than the funding for her son and when she complained they just lowered the amount without so much as batting an eyelid as if its their right to rip off the ndis funding from a participant with a disability. Nothing official is even done, they just take your childs funding and play around with the amounts – as one mother described happened to her son’s money at Afford…They blatantly steal so many providers do this it has also happened to my sons funds, and therapists also take what they can and more - I have encountered it with these also.
In an article by Rick Morton (May 21st to 27th 2022, The Saturday Paper) this week regarding the investigation into Afford Disabilities he notes
‘ Aprem’s case, from 2019, was the first to bring Afford to the attention of authorities, but the provider is now the subject of multiple investigations by the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission – a regulatory entity, separate to the agency that administers the disability support scheme.’ (Merna drowned in the bath while the workers left her unsupervised and went off to make sandwiches unaware that she was prone to seizures despite Afford having received all that information on Merna on her profile and agreeing to care for her by contract – they did not do duty of care at all)
The NDIS commission launched its first ever civil penalty proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia against the organisation for its alleged failure “to identify and implement measures to protect Ms Aprem against the risks associated with her having a seizure whilst bathing” and a failure to “ensure that Ms Aprem was adequately supervised”.
Rick also notes that since then even more cases have come forward of Affords worker at the Mt Druitt day program abuse of the vulnerable disability children, and Afford’s misuse of the participants ndis funds
“Since then, investigations have been opened into alleged abuse of NDIS participants in a Mount Druitt day program run by Afford; into “alleged misuse of NDIS funding”, which has resulted in a debt notice from the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) for $110,000; and into a “culture of extravagant spending on staff and employees not related to the care of clients”.
In the article it notes that because it grew so fast that Afford (as one of the workers from there testified) became all about how much money they could make and not so much about how much they could care for their vulnerable participants!
They started slipping up in many ways including medications and not reporting incidents to the NDIS commission
“The provider also faces inquiries about almost 1000 occasions of missed medications that ought to have been administered but were not, the failure to report these serious issues to authorities because Afford claims it did not know they were reportable matters, and “apparent systemic non-compliance”. (Rick Morton the Saturday paper, May 2022)
The Commissioner at the Royal commission found it a concern the way Afford disabilities had inconsistencies in its statements and noted in the Morton article was
“The chair of the royal commission, Ronald Sackville, QC, appeared uneasy with many of the excuses and “apparent inconsistency” put forward by Afford regarding its conduct. He asked the NDIS commission’s Taylor what the regulator would do if it simply did not believe a provider’s explanations.
“Is it of concern to a commissioner if a service provider provides an explanation that lacks authenticity and can be demonstrated to lack authenticity?” he said. “Assume it’s a deliberate misleading. What does the commission do?”
The Ndis Quality and Safety commission secretary Samantha, said they would look at it and see if the statements were true or not – an insipid vague indirect reply to which the Commissioner Sackville of RC said “Let me explain that one of the themes – as I’m sure you’re aware through a number of hearings – has been that both the commission and the NDIA sometimes may be too reactive and too reliant upon what they’re told by the service providers, and I’m just trying to ascertain what in a particular case, if it becomes clear that a service provider is not providing you with accurate information and is doing so deliberately, what are you going to do about it,” he said.
I love the Royal Commission for being so straight in their questions. They are an independent organisation and they can do this questioning without bias. Sackville had a right to question the Ndis what they do if a provider lies. There was no answer. I assume the NDIS does nothing.
The NDIS quality and safety commission people just avoid any straight answering and avoid any action whenever parents go to them with their complaints and concerns and even in serious cases of harm the watchdog just says it will investigate it very rarely if ever punishes the provider.
In Merna Aprem’s case there is a civil suing of Afford - but it took her to die and it has taken two and a half years for any action by the NDIS. They should be ashamed of themselves. They seem as bad as the dodgy providers and appear to cover providers ignoring the needs of the participants they run their business around the NDIS also needs to be made accountable for what it is doing in the best interests of the vulnerable people it is meant to be helping. Or there should be a class action against the Ndis quality and Safety office itself for failure to act on parents complaints, failure to penalize and failure to care.
all kudos to parents trying to raise their disability children and under so much stress and may we stand together and win the fight for our children's rights to have their needs met and their need for safety sign my petition
change.org/disabilitycameras
Anndrea x