Back in October 2015 I went to an NDIS
meeting at Synapse. I blogged this in Whacksworks titled What will NDIS do for us? Have a read of that one. I don't think my
questions were or will be answered.
I went to a second meeting at the City
Council building soon after that, which was attended primarily by
disabled people. It was supposed to give us a warm intro into NDIS
but I think I already knew much about it. And I still didn't think it
would work.
Over the next year I saw too many
articles which said that disabled people had been broken down with
their sincere effort trying to get in. On 1 July 2013 the Tasmania
government signed up for a 3-year trial in 2013, and on 11 December
2015, not even 3 years, signed on to the “real” NDIS. It has
causes headaches. One was the family of a 13 year old boy who has
dystonic quadriplegic cerebral palsy. He wasn't eligible from July
2016, but his family has fought NDIS to get him listed. Another was
the family of a 26 year old woman with autism and non-verbal. So far,
after too many “plans”, they still haven't been able to get her
registered.
In August 2015 in WA, the WA Today said
that their own model should be supported, rather than the national
scheme which “continues to face criticism”.
Natalie Thompson, who cares for her 16
year old son, told the Joint Standing Committee on the National
Disability Insurance Scheme: “We did have funding through the
old system, which worked great, and he was doing really well for a
couple of years under the old system. When we went over to NDIS, that
all changed. They cut our funding dramatically as well.”
In December 2016, nothing had changed.
One mother from Perth said: “There's ... less money handed out.
Because I self-manage our funds I'm given a limit of $25 per hour to
pay for support workers, which often means going for unqualified
workers.” Her son is deaf, and relies on cochlear implants to
access sounds. That, unfortunately, has “convinced” the
Disability Insurance Commission that he's not deaf!
On 16
April 2016 the Australian wrote a long federal article titled
Monster that ate the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and
said: “From today’s vantage point, the medley of early
mistakes have matured into a scheme that is riddled with access
issues, slow planning turnarounds and questions about future design
that will have huge effects on its financial sustainability. The pace
at which the NDIS must grow is about to jump astronomically: the
agency says it will need to make 12,000 decisions a month for the
next two years.” This is worth reading if you believe that the
NDIS has problems.
In 2015 the Sydney Morning Herald wrote
various articles about NDIS, including the concerns shown throughout
NSW which raised “ many questions [which] remain about the
future of disability services in NSW.” They wrote that: “There
are about 400,000 people with a disability in NSW, with up to 240,000
having a high degree of disability, according to the Australian
Bureau of Statistics. With 140,000 people expected to be eligible for
the NDIS, what will happen to the other 260,000 people? Where will
they get support?”
In December 2015 the SMH wrote that
disability groups had “an alarming lack of confidence in the
NDIS roll out ahead of the full transition to the $22 billion scheme
which will launch across the country next year.”
Qld doesn't seem to have had articles
yet, because this state isn't fully opened for NDIS until 2019. So
far there are a few people who have registered: certainly not enough.
This year, in March, the ABC reported
problems. It's title said National Disability Insurance Scheme rollout plagued with problems, FOI documents reveal.
Much information was revealed in those documents, including the facts
that NDIS “stopped processing thousands of applications
from service providers, critical staff were untrained and properties
were not ready when the scheme's nationwide rollout began.”
Back at the first meeting which I attended (Synapse, October
2015), I had asked how the shifting of “critical staff” worked.
We got ignorant replies, and we had nothing in writing to show how it
would work. Recently I searched Google for organisations which would
help disabled people through NDIS. Many are not listed. ABC said this
year that “[b]etween 3,000 and 4,000 businesses and
not-for-profit providers were blocked from entering the scheme
because applications could not be transferred to a new IT system.”
It is very scary to both those providers and to the disabled people
who have previously used them – can they still use them?
Federal
minister, Christian Porter, didn't answer questions from ABC. He sent
them on to NDIA to speak to NDIA spokesperson Maryanne Diamond. There
has been no real responses from her which would have answer my
questions.
The NDIS website has a list of how the
disabled person might be able to register as a participant. It lists
the access requirements and discusses how a disabled person could get
help. It says that you have to produce proof of your disability. The scheme is not due to be fully opened in Qld until 2019, but has different dates until then – for instance, the Logan area where I live will be available from 1 July 2018.
For the NDIS, I still have a lot of
questions – and I'm sure I will have problems. I had a stroke 3
years ago, I am on DSP and I have aphasia which kicks in when I am
tired (constantly) or upset (too often). I'm told I can only work 8
hours a week for now. Would NDIS pay DSP? Would they rearrange my
hours so they can kick me off their scheme – less money in
Newstart? If the people who have already met with problems, are they
worse disabled than me? If so, why were they declined?
NDIS needs to work a lot better to fix
their own problems, but they also need to definitely answer the
questions that any disabled person, any family supporters, any
friends, any carers or anyone involved with supporting
disabled people still are asking.
When will they fix that?
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