The need for reform of the NDIS to stop throwing money at office work and administration and using lawyers to fight parents…this is No Accountability by Providers – meaning few penalties or punishments no matter what they do. The NDIS also does not commit to health and safety in places of care never checking physically on respite houses or residential care…the managers not reporting what really happens
– means corruption and neglect and abuse can occur freely… and the deaths that can occur and do from that lack of care are not being treated as the crimes they are… This federal government should be ashamed of their failure to care about those in disabilities and stop talking about the budget ‘blowout’ which is an excuse to stop giving funding to disabilities…a neo-liberal ploy to say they care yet they only care about the money and not wasting it on the vulnerable….this is a despicable eugenics thing they only want perfect humans who are money earners and young…the politicians of course realize don't they that they themselves will be old one day and maybe sick and have a disability?
Why is NDIS only for those under 65 years old - who will support those with disabilities who cannot move, cannot speak, may be blind, deaf or other disorders do they just expect them to die off? Is that the plan? Why does Bill Shorten say it is too expensive to have NDIS for over 65 year old disability people? A disability does not go away… And the NDIS were the ones spending 40 million dollars on top lawyers to fight parents of disabilities children trying to get their funding back that they needed desperately. So don’t keep saying the budget blew out because the NDIS Ceo and minister of disabilities were the ones ‘blowing it out’ (the budget) to stop disabilities people getting the money they needed…how dare they do this after boasting how great the NDIS was going to be…as if they cared!
The NDIS severely let down David Harris who died in 2019 after his funding was cut off by the NDIS and later the 55 year old man (not even 65 years old yet) was found dead and alone by his sister in his house. His sister Leanne Longfellow has spent the last three years fighting for a full investigation into the failures that led to the isolation and neglect of her brother and cut off funds leading to his death under the NDIS.
Only one support worker and the sister who lives interstate made inquiries into David Harris’s wellbeing the article notes “In 2020 Longfellow was told a coronial inquest would take place to investigate the circumstances leading to his death. The two-day inquest has since been cancelled.
“I’m still reeling from the shock of it all,” Longfellow told Crikey. She believes the NDIS is downplaying its role in her brother’s care, arguing a coronial inquest could highlight failures — a process that may help prevent further neglect of other people with disabilities.”
The NDIS supports for Harris were for everyday tasks he needed help with – his plan ended in 2019 Amber Schultz (28 October 2022 Crikey and MSN) notes “New information obtained by Longfellow under freedom of information (FOI) laws has revealed that the NDIS, instead of a third-party organisation, was responsible for contacting Harris to implement a new plan and funding due to the severity of his disabilities. It reached out to him only once — two days after his funding expired — and cancelled a call back with him. It’s likely he died shortly after.”
The article also notes “Harris was one of the first people placed on the NDIS for psychosocial disabilities. He was expected to coordinate his own care, attend meetings and respond to calls and emails, which Longfellow believes is a failure of the NDIS as some people with mental illness may be incapable of organising appointments while in the grips of depression or psychosis. It’s this failure in the NDIS case management system Longfellow wanted a coroner to investigate.”
Now Schultz notes (2022) the coronial inquest which had been set up to see why these failures occurred has been cancelled - are they in collusion with NDIS too?
This poor woman, Leeanne Longfellow has tried to fight for her disability brother to have proper investigation into why he was left alone and without help with NDIS knowing full well his situation he was – someone who attended a rehab and had visits from nurses 2 to 3 times a week to help him and had it all cut off because he was not able to organize a new plan and he was unable to help himself.
Many of our children cannot help themselves and need to be supported. We parents must fight for their rights now because as far as the NDIS is concerned it does not care about the care – only we do. We parents must force the NDIS structure to change and providers be penalized for their neglect of our children’s care and well being even unto death for some – too many. WE may have to do a class actions if the NDIS does not do the right thing by our children. Whatever we do we must not do nothing. Evil thrives where good people do nothing.
The NDIS behaves like a corporate business because that is actually what it is now - its business intentions are to make a marketplace out of the Disabilities persons needs for care – and they have so much that even corrupt businesses have now sprung up and every man and his dog is making a business out of disabilities who know nothing about disabilities they just want to make money. In doing so it has put our children and adult children at risk and the NDIS is not making the providers accountable enough. If they have made disabilities a market place – they actually then have left out the care
Noted in the ‘NDIS Statement of opportunity and Intent’ - The document describes the NDIS Market approach a high level and is designed to:
- ensure that the NDIS community understands the roles and responsibilities the Agency has in this new disability marketplace;
- build confidence in the marketplace;
- ensure accountability for the Agency; and,
- create predictability about how this newly developing marketplace will operate.
There is no talk of high quality care and trained workers – no talk of real time physical involvement with the participants it is all about the value for money scenario – I guess part of that ‘value for money’ is to give the disability person as little as possible. There has not been enough accountability at all by providers or the agency itself.
Noted also in the article that “While a review of the NDIS has been brought forward to take place this year, NDIS Minister Bill Shorten — who criticised the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA)’s care of Harris when Crikey’s investigation was released while he was in opposition — has yet to announce changes to case management of participants with psychosocial disabilities.”
We parents and siblings must fight for our dear ones rights for the vulnerable in disabilities while overseas there is talk of making euthanasia available in Canada to be rid of even children or those with disabilities even without parent’s consent and not even terminally ill
https://nypost.com/.../canada-expanding-assisted-suicide.../
we must stand up and fight before that kind of unethical behaviour reaches our shores – we must value human lives and the lives of those with disabilities no one has the right to devalue another human’s life regardless of any needs or imperfections - no one is perfect not even the politicians but their high regard for money is usurping our human rights and the rights of those with disabilities.
We see the aborigine boy murdered for being indigenous- discrimination in Australia and it needs to stop and no one should die for belonging to another race. NO one should die for having a disability and our society acting as if it does not matter. All human lives matter and disability lives matter. I would love to see disability parents out in the public place standing up for their children’s rights because otherwise this society will turn a blind eye to wrongs that are being done to those in disabilities – the abuse by workers and exploitation by the management of such organizations such as Afford seen as spending on the staff in their parties and not caring for those in their books they are making money off – how dare they….David Harris died through being neglected and cut off supports, Merna died through neglect and lack of supervision, Anne Marie Smith died through wilful and gross neglect by her worker many others died but not investigated and treated as unimportant or normal. This is wrong we need reform and change. Yes and we need Bill Shorten to step up and do the right thing not like his predecessors Stuart Robert formally a military officer – why did he run NDIS? – part of the Robo debt creation along with Scott Morrison making illegal claims of debt against those who had nothing, and Linda Reynolds formally minister for Defence – why was she running NDIS someone with little more than business on her mind and money? We need leadership with more than money on their minds but also empathy and care of those in disabilities and upholding of human rights otherwise they will let the NDIS money making machine destroy those in its wake it was meant to be caring for.
All the best
Anndrea x
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