The bullying and control in disabilities and aged care organizations....
In a recent Guardian news article (Sonia Sodha, 21 August 2022) it was noted the hell that many with disabilities went through during the pandemic (similar to aged care) one person with learning difficulties could not see her family for a year and was locked into her residential care with three carers. So distressed that her hair fell out from the anguish an anguish many Australians felt in that time when separated against their will from families, in states, in aged care, in childbirth in death and funerals…families could not reach out to each other in person….yet the anguish still continues for those with disabilities and their families as the pandemic is not really over but this anguish of separation or being forced into a prison like lifestyle happens to those with disabilities all through their lives unless parents fight for them and for their freedom and rights as human beings.

The Guardian article notes that when you have someone with a disability in your family you have to fight the system for your child to be treated with dignity which most of us would take for granted. When this family in the article sent their daughter to a residential school, they didn’t know that she had had prone restraint used on her where she had been forced to lie face down on the floor and she started doing this at home when she got distressed until she realized this wouldn’t happen to her anymore.

This girl, Emily now lives with carers in her own home due to parents’ efforts, the article states “Far too many young people are denied the chance to live lives infused with love and meaning…” put in places against their will for years in institutional settings, it notes, that make their behaviours of distress far worse and even more difficult to manage.
The article also says that some journalists have uncovered horrific practices such as the inappropriate use of drugs to control behaviour and young people living in isolation so extreme their meals are delivered through a hatch and families are not allowed to visit them because it causes to much distress when they leave. Why are their rights not upheld why are they ignored and treated as if in a prison? Organizations have no right to do such abuse and to stop parents seeing their children! This bullying and control is despicable parents have to put up with and should not accept but fight back for their child or adult child in disabilities.

Similarly in aged care with the Newmarch tragedy where the director and the managers of Newmarch did not do right by the people in their care during covid and refused to move them to hospitals when the old people got sick and actually would not let some families remove their parent who was not sick, saying there was a public health order prohibiting any resident from leaving the home (was that an out and out lie?) the Public Health director telling them they would be fined or sent to prison for doing so….he said it was a public health order but when asked to see the order by the family he did not have one - but would consider putting one in place if they took their father out of there, so he threatened and bullied that family just to stop them taking their vulnerable parent out of the Newmarch house where infection was running loose for those who stayed. Shame on him I hope he goes to prison himself. How dare they stop a family taking their parent out of harms way why? Did they just want the money for having him there? (Ruby Cornish ABC News 25 July 2022)

It's all about the money and so we see for the vulnerable in disabilities and the vulnerable in aged care they are exploited and treated badly at the time they most need empathy and help. Simply because they can be treated like that and the organizations get away with it. It was noted that at Newmarch house the sick were never moved to hospital even though Nepean Hospital was close by and that the residents were locked in their rooms and at times went with food and medical attention (Tom Livingstone 9News July 2022). Now they are being investigated and those at the top who did wrong should be dealt with by the law properly. Only thinking about the money many Directors in Aged care and managers don’t care what happens to those in there care as long as they keep getting the money. This is wrong and needs to change.

A society that puts money value on human lives actually devalues a person, when all humans have value. They only want people who make money to mean anything hence the push for childcare as long as parents keep working childcare is more important than disabilities or aged care. All humans have value and should be valued by the rest of society as one day any person can develop a disability or be in aged care – treat all with value.

In disabilities the bullying also occurs to parents of disability kids/adult children, and parents are made to feel there is something wrong with them if they complain against wrong treatment of their child or because the workers are not properly trained or have any inkling of disabilities they try to blame the disability person for being at fault when it is their own incompetence at not knowing what to do, so they shift the blame. When all workers should be accountable for what happens to those in their care – and should have training, education and ongoing training and education. Unfortunately, it seems providers want to get young workers who cost less to employ and use them in disabilities as cheap labour - but those young people often do not know how to handle a intellectual disability person and it can end in abuse, wrong actions and abuse against a vulnerable child or adult, particularly if the workers is lacking in patience or any understanding. They simply do not know what they are doing and have no compassion to boot.

I recently questioned a one on one worker, when my son dropped a bowling ball on his foot they only told me a day or two later from the organisation running the day program – I said you need to help him lift the bowling ball – if he has a one on one worker your attention should only be on him. He has a disability they don’t know how to handle the bowling ball themselves (they have a disability remember?) I suspect the organisation says the worker is there for James but uses them for others as well and the young worker gets distracted. The worker baulked at this and did not want to have to talk to me about my son again, yet all parents need to know their children are safely being looked after by a worker – we need accountability but the support workers seem surprised that we would want that from them – yet the organisations can charge out over $600 a day for that one on one worker and the program and expect that we want our child to be looked after properly. What’s not to understand?

Another time later a different incident my son was knocked over and the manager rang me and said a client tripped James over…she tells me two days later. How I said? Oh the client tripped James over I wasn’t there to see it. Why don’t you supervise all the workers with the clients I suggested to the main manager. Why not tell me on the day, not two days later? in fact why leave it – trying to distance themselves? They always do. You have cameras I said you can always look on those. The day program person seemed to gulp realising she had just lied to me because I found out from the one on one worker the other client had pushed James over - he wasn’t tripped over at all – a changing story. I asked, if you are looking after him one on one how could another person push him over? Oh that client rushed out and usually has two workers looking after him but one got busy and the other I guess let him go. The truth is best. The worker didn’t want to have to be accountable for anything that happened – the organisation doesn’t want to give them proper training or ongoing training and education but expect to get all the NDIS funding with little accountability. They say our children are safe and then do not provide proper supervision even with the one on one workers there. They really are money mongers in the end. Parents have to monitor step in and protect their disability children at any age – it is exhausting to be fighting all the time.

Yet we have to fight and we need legislation to make our vulnerable children safe… for their futures and for parents peace of mind, we need cctv cameras to be mandatory so that if anything does happen we have the evidence or else abuse and neglect will continue in disabilities when it should not – our innocent children deserve better than that. sign my petition: change.org/disabilitycameras

all the best
Anndrea x
#disabilitylivesmatteroz