“A new report released by Disability advocates, attempts to cut through the noise of reforms going on in the sector.”
To watch this interview, go to:
Venue: QT Canberra, 1 London Circuit, Canberra.
To register for this event go to:
https://events.humanitix.com/ndis-community-catch-up-canberra
Minister Shorten will be hosting similar events to be held in Perth and Brisbane in May.
Details will soon be available at www.dss.gov.au/NDISreforms
With Treasurer Jim Chalmers due to deliver the 2024-2025 Federal Budget next Tuesday (14th May), there is legitimate concern around the allocations set to impact the lives of people with disability.
Disability organisations made pre-submission recommendations geared towards protecting and benefiting Australians living with disability. However, will this input influence Mr Chalmer’s Budget and work for or against one of our country’s most vulnerable groups?
https://iview.abc.net.au/collection/2184
Having recently read Cathy Roberts’ half glass full to overflowing post (https://www.facebook.com/groups/physicaldisabilityaustralia/permalink/10160530510427599/?) on how fortunate she feels on living in Australia – “the lucky country” – particularly as a person living with disability, we got thinking.
Whilst there’s a lot happening in our country around disability and so many people are going through personal challenges and feeling concerned about issues like the NDIS reforms, lack of disability housing and making ends meet, we only have to look at the way that countries including the UK, America, India and New Zealand are facing disability funding and support crises to see that Australia is trying.
What are your thoughts?
Are we on track?
Are our leaders meeting the needs of Australia’s disability community?
Positives. Negatives. Suggestions.
We’d love to hear from you.
Throughout May, Bill Shorten will be hosting a number of face to face NDIS Community Catch Up events across Australia:
These are all in person only events, with a further National online event soon to be scheduled.
Come along and ask your questions about NDIS reform.
Tomorrow’s (Wednesday 8th May at 10:45am AEST) Sydney event will be run as a morning tea.
To attend this event, you must register by going to:
https://events.humanitix.com/ndis-community-catch-up-sydney
Details on the upcoming Canberra, Perth, Brisbane and online events will soon be available at www.dss.gov.au/NDISreforms
PDA’s President/WA Director, Andrew Fairbairn, and PDA Member, Clare Gibellini, were recently involved as accessibility consultants for WA’s P&N Bank.
In efforts to improve banking accessibility, particularly for people living with disabilities and neurodiverse customers, features include sensory-sensitive spaces (where lighting and sound can be adjusted to create a calming environment), iPads loaded with children’s games, accessible service desks and wall-mounted TV screens positioned for visibility from a wheelchair are available.
To read more go to:
https://www.mpamag.com/au/mortgage-industry/dei/pn-bank-opens-new-inclusive-branches/486916
Our Social Hours are held on the first Monday every month and we’d love you to join us for one of our favourite times of the month.
First Sunday in April to First Sunday in October (6pm AEST)
First Sunday in October to First Sunday in April (6pm AEDT)
If you haven’t yet been along to one of our online Social Hours, you are in for a great time, great company and new friends.
If you’re one of our many regulars, we look forward to seeing you again at our next fun Social Hour.
To join us you will need to register by heading across to:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYqc–qqjkjG903J2KoieI9ASVSig7b4mxr
If you can’t make it to this month’s Social Hour, click on the same link and register for another upcoming month.
Hope to see you at a Social Hour soon. 😊
These roles provide a great opportunity to become part of a hardworking, fun team that works for the benefit of all Australians living with physical disability.
So what’s involved?
We are looking for someone (preferably with lived experience of physical disability) who can:
If this sounds like something you’d like to be part of or you’d like to hear more, please email manager@pda.org.au.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Submissions are now open from individuals and organisations to be involved in the development of the Australian Design Guidelines for Access and Inclusion in Residential Development.
The Australian Human Rights Commission, in partnership with Churchill Research Fellow, Kim Samuel, and the Winston Churchill Trust, is preparing a research report on best-practice approaches to the delivery of inclusive and accessible housing.
The resulting Guidelines will be “the first of its kind developed for the Australian policy and regulatory contexts, integrating, and building on existing minimum accessibility standards within the National Construction Code, Liveable Housing Design Guidelines and NDIS Specialist Disability Accommodation requirements, applying universal design principles.”
To best address the necessary components and elements to ensure housing is accessible for the needs of PWD, involvement from individuals and organisations from the following areas of expertise are required:
Submissions close 11:59pm Tuesday 14 May 2024.
Submissions will not be made public and can be made in any of the following formats:
For more information, go to:
“Stakeholder briefing and feedback sessions have been organised throughout the consultation period. You can find out more and register for the relevant session via the following links:
My own experience.
In 2022, and as a result of a poorly constructed council footpath, I fell from my mobility scooter and landed on the road. Fortunately this accident occurred outside a repatriation hospital, so I was quickly attended to by nursing staff from the hospital. An ambulance was promptly called and I was taken to the local public hospital, where I was diagnosed with a broken finger and bruised ribs.
Imagine how, as an able bodied person, you would cope with this sudden pain on your left side from bruised ribs and and sporting a splint on your hand. It’s painful, but you are still able to walk around, go to the toilet and for the most part go about your normal day to day living – in pain, but still able to move.
Now imagine the same scenario where you do not have the use of your legs. To move you need to use your arms to push, pull and lift your body around, BUT your ribs are so painful that doing so is excruciating. This also impacts on the injury’s rate of healing through constant movement and having to disturb those injured ribs and finger.
You beg the hospital for help. A rude nurse actually scoffs that you are in hospital for a broken finger. Your frustration at her lack of compassion and understanding is such that you whip the sheet from the bed back and proceed to lift up your legs with your unaffected arm, flopping them around to prove you are in fact “disabled” and in need of help.
You are discharged with no plan and no assistance on how to mobilise.
Two years later, you have another accident in a hostile built environment, due to a step that is not visibly defined with required signage or tactile markers. As a result, you now have a fractured clavicle (collarbone). After seeking medical treatment, you are given a sling – basically taking away your arm so you are no longer mobile – AND sent home again.
The sling is quickly discarded in the carpark because, with it on, you can not get back into the car to go home, get out at home, or basically move at all whilst wearing it.
This was my experience.
One of my friends who has no leg function, had a similar situation following surgery for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, where she was sent home “to recover”. There is no way a person with a disability who is reliant on the usage of their upper body can simply stop using one arm and continue to function. Yet she was sent home to ‘cope’. Her pain was unimaginable and the success of the operation compromised as a result.
Three situations where the medical system has let people with disabilities down. Stories such as these are not uncommon. There are many more with people discharged from hospital with no duty of after care!
Many studies, reports and information are provided to patients about discharge planning from a multitude of sources – including NDIS discharge planning, hospital planning and even academic publications like the CSIRO (2024) https://www.publish.csiro.au/IB/pdf/IB23088 which comprehensively highlight the real issues. A major one being the conflict between the needs of people with disabilities and the hospitals’ discharge of patients with disability without real planning or consideration of the needs of the person upon returning home.
How and why does this occur in a fully functioning health system?
Lack of knowledge at the ward level and the clinician level. There is a lack of knowledge about the level of complexity an injury or surgery has on the functionality of a person with disabilities. A desire to ‘move patients on’ and free up beds at the detriment of patient care. The lack of advocacy within the health system to assist people to have a voice around their care. The lack of experience at every level of staffing in the health system – including allied health working with and understanding the complexity of physical mobilisation of people who are wheelchair users. Clinicians are seemingly simply under so much pressure that they are unable to follow the logical threads of loss of limb function due to accident or surgery and how this may impact the person’s mobility. There seems to exist a real lack of understanding or expertise, and perhaps an unconscious incompetence or lack of capacity to train up to do better.
How do we address this? More training. We need to seriously have more training for clinicians. This needs to be co-designed with people who have experienced the system failures and the malfunctions within. People with disability need to be involved in developing an education program for clinicians to avert failures in post-hospital discharge of people with disabilities when they are sent home in pain with no after care. Such consideration would reduce longer healing times and permanent and ongoing injuries commonly experienced due to such lack of care and clinical resources at accidents and injury onset.
We have to stop giving wheelchair users slings and sending them home.
1800 732 674
