There should not be so many dying in disabilities !- it is treated as normal for providers to cover up and give no accountability – when it is should not happen… The Ndis and its Quality Commission, needs to be regulated and providers need to be regulated both are not accountable enough! They think they can do what they like…
Back in 2020 Amber Schultz wrote about the problem of providers not even being fined despite the delay they take in reporting deaths of those with disabilities. https://www.crikey.com.au/2020/09/17/ndis-disability-death/
The watchdog, she noted, receives reports of 11 people a week dying in disabilities – these are not always people with physical problems – these include preventable deaths. Yet 20 percent are not reported for up to over 5 days and the Providers do not get punished for it. It should be reported straightaway. Amber says it is no surprise as the sleep watchdog Commission was inundated with complaints that year and did little about them. I know that when my son has had incidents even at a recent day program they take three days to tell me and I should be told as a parent immediately or at leastthat day. Similarly when James was attacked at a respite house the workers said it never happened and I made them fill out an incident report and tell NDIS. I also reported it to the NDIS commission and they were useless making minimal effort. “Without cameras” they say hands in the air “we can do nothing” cant or wont punish the provider. Hence my petition for mandatory cameras for providers to be answerable since they refuse to be without saying so.
Also noted was that 38% of deaths of those with intellectual disabilities could have been prevented. Why? Because staff are never trained enough if ever at all and do not read the instructions or profiles of the clients, or victims who die in care, it can be misadventure because they are not being properly supervised or the support worker fails to take care of them properly – neglect and gross neglect even worse – the Providers do not put enough staff on because they want to save money or they use immigrant labour and people who cannot speak English well enough to understand the instructions, or people who do not really care, have no empathy and no clues about a disability person’s complex needs. If your child cannot speak you hope they will be ok but are never really sure. They cannot tell you who hurt them. No one knows truly how they got hurt or how it was they died! When they should never die. Without transparency from providers, who are not transparent, and who talk it down as not wanting to be liable for a court case. All about the money. How sad that the most vulnerable are treated like this. We need to change this situation we must not let any more vulnerable children/young people/adults die when they do not have to and we cannot let this continue.
We parents must stick together and work and push for the NDIS to be made more accountable and the providers they are so lenient to.
Noted in the article Dr Margaret Nixon, an expert in disability criminology at Swinburne University, told Crikey the delay was representative of an overburdened disability sector.
“It’s hard to have a system that works properly without proper resourcing, staffing or advocacy,” she says, adding that accountability is complicated and not tracked well.
“This is how negligence happens — with no one noticing or paying attention.”
The NDIS itself needs to be accountable for how it runs things – on the ground no checking up is being done. It needs to be regulated and Providers need to be regulated – they only focus on business while paying lip service to the care which is not good enough they provide with workers of whom many of only see as a job.
Amber Schultz notes there are no repercussions for Providers for bad behaviour – none they can do what they like – we need to make them accountable we need to regulate these providers and their pal NDIS by making them have to account for what happens and we need health and safety properly applied. People are fined at normal businesses for any accidents or misadventure, harm caused by unsafe practices - we need people, ceos, managers all fined for failing to keep health and safety for human lives if they are running it like a business which they all say they are then they need to be punished like a business for any harm that happens to our children.
Noted in Crikey article Complaints dismissed
Across two years from July 1, 2018, to June 30, 2020, the commission received 8168 complaints — 5784 of which were under the its jurisdiction.
• 12% were about alleged abuse and neglect
• 52% were about provider practice
• 47% of people who complained had their cases closed with no further action
• 42% were given assistance — although as in the case of Georgi Hadden, who had her complaint closed after she left her providers’ care and declined to speak to management, its isn’t always up to par.
The commission employs 300 staff, receives $35 million a year, and has spent more than $1.5 million in travel since it was established, with staff spending more than $300,000 on meals and incidental costs.
Yet all this money spent and they still took parents to court with top lawyers to to stop them getting the funding they needed for their children – parents fighting with advocates or themselves for their vulnerable ones – why did they have to fight the NDIS when it was created to provide for those with disabilities. NDIS and the federal government should be ashamed of themselves. They say they are helping those with disabilities on the one hand and then take off them with the other and try to beat them with millions of dollars spent on Lawyers it is sick and heartless the way they are two minded on everything to stop parents even getting the help they need for their children. A neo liberal way of crushing what they say they are helping.
We must stand up and fight and keep fighting for our children. We need laws that make it illegal to treat disability persons with disrespect, to vilify them or to neglect them or to let a vulnerable disability person die because the worker never did the right thing. The worker is never sued and the organization keeps it at a distance.
Sign my petition: change.org/disabilitycameras
#disabilitylivesmatteroz
#cameras4disabilities
All the best
Anndrea Wheatley x