LifeRAT (http://liferat.com.au) is a community group recently brought together to provide FREE Rapid Antigen Tests to Australia’s disabled community, and to overcome cost and supply issues and the difficulties and concerns experienced by PWD in trying to access RATs.
PDA’s Ambassador, Dinesh Palipana OAM, in conjunction with Scott, Tim and Tyler from Able Digital Wellness (http://abledigitalwellness.com.au) and Rob from Lovehoney (www.lovehoney.com.au), put together this project to ensure that people with disability are provided with free RAT testing so that they “can get back to living”.
Supported by partners that include Australia Post and Mainfreight, people with disability can register to take part in this incredible project by going to:
http://liferat.com.au
As part of his logistic involvement in the project, Lovehoney’s Rob is also interested in employing people with disability to be involved in the distribution of the RATs.
If you are a person with disability looking for employment and you’d like to be involved, please email Rob directly via rob.godwin@lovehoney.co.uk.
Rob has been doing a lot of work on inclusion with Lovehoney, including his involvement with ambassadors Dylan Alcott and Chantelle Otten Sex Therapist.
For more information go to:
www.abledgitalawareness.com.au/about-us/
With elections looming this year and with accessibility to vote further challenged by COVID-19, PDA is interested to hear about issues that you have personally faced in previous elections – whether at a polling station, early voting centre, via telephone, postal or AEC voting.
We encourage you all to participate in our short survey so that we can ensure that all members of the community have equal access to the political process.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JVYDNNG
Written by PDA President, Andrew Fairbairn.
In my last blog published in May 2021 (https://www.pda.org.au/2021/05/13/the-one-legged-sax-player-on-home-modifications-part-two/), I wrote of the process I had to go through to engage a Project Manager, Builder and OT. Well……I am so happy to write that as of today, the 29thJanuary 2022:
THEY ARE NOW COMPLETE.
Let me take you back in time to the middle of 2021, and please forgive me with timeline, I am old, and I sometimes forget things.
By the end of May, all the reports were lodged with the NDIA by my OT and PM. I then had to wait while they were looked at, dissected, discussed, and according to the Delegate, LOST. You can imagine how that went down with me. I wasn’t impressed at all. My OT had to upload the Complex Home Modification Request (CHM) again, adding yet more wait time.
In the middle of October, yes, five months later, I received a phone call from yet another Delegate telling me that I needed to upload the OT CHM again, as they “couldn’t find it on the system” Well, you can imagine how that went down with me, so I insisted that the Delegate send me this request by email in accordance with my NDIS File stating that I only want contact by email.
The email arrived, and I immediately replied to it, stating that I knew that the document was on the system, and I called the Delegate out. I also copied my reply to NDIA CEO Martin Hoffman, NDIA WA State Manager Ed Duncan and his Associate Manager Nathan Hills.
Now bear in mind, this has been ongoing now for 2.3 years. About 30 minutes later I received a phone call from Ed Duncan, wanting to know what was going on. I explained the situation to him, an lo and behold, 6 hours later a new plan dropped into my email, complete with all the funding required to complete the home modifications.
The build began in early November, with me and my wife moving into the backroom of our son’s house for the next 2.5 months.
I had to modify a few things with the design and placement of things as we went along, but overall, I now have a fully accessible house, complete with wide doorways throughout, ramps to the front and back doors, completely redesigned bathroom and laundry, new carport and a fully electric gate to access the back of the house.
As I close out this chapter, I implore you to keep on with gaining access to funding for home modifications. Stick to your plan, research, and know what you want, but mostly, don’t take no for an answer. YOU’VE GOT THIS.
BEFORE PHOTO
DURING PHOTOS
I will follow this up with a VLOG walk through to show the final product.
Stay tuned and stay safe.
REFLECT
Covid 19 has absolutely shattered our world reality. None of us were prepared for the virus that not only took lives, (currently around 4 and a half million worldwide) but stole our lifestyles and forced us to lockdown, to vaccinate and to learn new skills like social distancing, hand sanitising and checking in to just about everywhere we go to protect the ones we love.
Australia thus far has done exceptionally in adapting to this new lifestyle and containing this virus. Very few of us in Tasmania have been personally effected by death from this insidious disease but we have been affected by systems and procedures that lack access to a cohort of our society.
That cohort is People with Disabilities.
Most of us here today know the marginalisation of people with disabilities in our society. Most of us here deal on a day to day basis in our organisations with people with disabilities. Yet, when COVID hit us in March 2020, No one in government was prepared with real understanding of the intricacies of the life of PWD and how covid would impact our lives and how we could be left behind, with no real planning for us leaving us precariously vulnerable.
In March 2020 I gave evidence at the Royal Commission into abuse and neglect of people with disabilities. My evidence was specific to how, as a person with a disability I was left vulnerable – as were many others who require the assistance of support workers to come into our homes on a daily basis to care for our basic needs. I gave evidence that I felt like my house was a potential COVID hotspot as my support workers and my husband’s aged care support came in and out of our home daily. We could only trust that they were doing the right thing to protect their vulnerable clients.
Reflect on how you would feel if this was you?
Fast forward to the vaccine roll out which started in Tasmania in early March.
The booking system.
How do you think the online booking system has played out for People with disabilities and the wider Tasmanian community with functional literacy rates of 49%? That’s 49% of people who function in the world of reading and writing well enough to navigate our systems. This excludes peoples who are computer literate which is a whole other ball game as we know.
Go to your GP you say? Well not all towns and rural regional areas had a roll out of GP’s who were willing to vaccinate their patients.
Can you see the gaps here? Can you see a pattern?
Bureaucracy has a real disconnect it seems with the implementation of systems and the people that use them. The most vulnerable don’t seem to be at the forefront of the thought process in this process.
Speaking from personal experience, I rang the booking line and took the next available appointment for a vaccine which was 100km from my home, a trip I took for both jabs. My daughter had to drive from Hobart to Launceston to get her first jab. We have mobility, we have cars, we have cash for petrol and we can navigate the system – but still it was arduous for us.
Reflect on this and how your clients may be impacted with the same story?
Now I’m no wilting flower when it comes to asking questions and finding out information. Back in March I rang the health department to see when PWD were scheduled to get a vaccine. How would ‘they’, those shadowy bureaucrats that are closeted in offices in tall buildings tasked with serving and protecting, how would ‘they’ know that I belonged to 1B? They didn’t know and I was fobbed off by someone who said the NDIS would be letting me know. So I rang the NDIS of course and was told by the NDIS that they had no jurisdiction in this matter and it was up to the state health department to implement procedures and the circle of buck passing went on and on.
It was only in late-June-early-July that dedicated Disability vaccine clinics were opened in Hobart and Launceston – but not in regional or rural Tasmania.
The messaging to the vulnerable, the real people of Tasmania, the elderly, the disabled has been very sparse, in some cases it’s like we have been totally overlooked in planning for the vaccine rollout – just as we were at beginning off the outbreak with support workers, PPE and isolation and protection.
ADAPT
It is said that, people with disabilities are often good problem solvers, thinking outside the box and creating solutions to problems that may not be apparent to others.
We know our own situations, we know our risks, we know our capacities and we are the best experts on our situations. We need to always be at the forefront of managements and bureaucracy when policy and systems are rolled out! 4.4 million people live with disability in Australia today. That’s a huge amount of adaptability. That’s a huge cohort of our Australian population. We need to be having our voices in the places where policy and systems are rolled out.
THRIVE
PWD are not here to blame and shame government and agencies for things that are not right, we are here to team with and be advisors with government and agencies. We are large stakeholders in our community and our own lives and we need to be listened to and be heard. We are going to have to live with Covid for a long time to come and to thrive we are going to have to work together. So my treaty here is for those at the top, in those shadowy offices, in tall buildings, to talk to, listen and hear PWD.
To adapt and thrive we need to be valued as experts in our own field which is disability and be heard, our lives depend on it!
A wonderful piece written by our fabulous TAS Associate Director, Tammy Milne, in November 2020.
Well worth a read.
https://www.tasmaniantimes.com/2020/11/occupying-space-disability-politics/
It is with great pleasure that we announce Tim Harte as PDA’s new VIC Director.
Tim’s lived experience as an NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) participant, disability pensioner and rural young person drives his commitment to empowering the voice and agency of people with disabilities.
Tim has tertiary qualifications in performing arts and science and has a background in disability, social & environmental justice activism and currently holds roles in Landcare, Australian Youth Climate Coalition, and the Deakin University Environmental Justice Club.
Tim is a Board Member of the Youth Affairs Council Victoria (YACVic), the peak body representing young people and the youth sector in Victoria, and is a member of the YACVic Youth Mental Health working group and the Commonwealth Children and Youth Disability Network.
Tim strongly supports the human rights-based model of disability and advocates for equitable access to services and meaningful participation and inclusion of people with disabilities in society.
Please join us in welcoming Tim to the PDA Board.
We look forward to working with Tim and capitalising on his experiences, energy and commitment to driving positive change in Australia’s disability landscape.
In supporting the disability community, PDA recognises and celebrates the potential value that self-employment offers in helping people with disability overcome barriers to work.
Research has revealed that “*people with disability are 40 per cent more likely to be self-employed than their able-bodied counterparts”.
If you’re a PDA Member and you’ve been thinking about starting your own business, have a business idea, want help in making your entrepreneurial move or simply want to learn about setting up a business, PDA’s first Webinar for 2021 may inspire you to take the first step towards financial independence.
Elle Steele is a successful entrepreneur, business owner, former Paralympian, Model, Optimist, Mentor and Motivation Queen.
As Presenter, she will provide the framework to setting up your own business and taking control of your employment options and your financial future.
This EXCITING FREE WEBINAR will be run on Thursday 25th March at 6pm AEST and you can register by clicking on the button below:
We look forward to seeing you there.
*https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2020/06/people-with-disability-turn-to-entrepreneurship/
1800 732 674
