Due to successive failures of the Queensland State Labour
Government, I feel myself living in limbo with my freedom to live an
Independent life style stolen away. Under the Labour Government the Department
of Disability Services introduced The Growing
Stronger was designed to give people
with disabilities greater lifestyle choices to engage in the community.
Today I sit here with my choices and freedom frozen in time,
as I wait for both Queensland Disabilities Services and Queensland Health to
act. To receive assistance through Disability
Services I must have a permanent disability that is unlikely to improve without
medical invention. Yet I sit on a Queensland
Health waiting list for medical test to determine if my new potentially life
threaten disability can be treated, only when all treatment options have been
explored can my application for assistance from Disabilities Services be
reviewed.
Anyone to accesses the public health system knows, waiting
lists can take years. As I wait my
active community life is now denied. I can no longer travel to work via taxi on
my own, until I have doctors clearance.
The irony of my situation is I already have a permanent disability,
as I was born with Cerebral Palsy and at 43 I am beginning to experience the
effects of the aging process, this disability alone qualifies for assistance by
after 10 years I continue to sit on the waiting list for assistance.
Calls pleading for
extra immediate assistance from my doctors over the last 4 weeks have fallen on
deaf ears. Call back if her treatment fails or her condition deteriorates.
While this makes no sense to my doctors, I just smile back saying, why would
the pay up if they don’t have too. After
waiting for 10 years this attitude makes sense to me.
Add to this logic is staff at Disability Services
are still waiting for the Newman's governments polices changes to filter through
and the end of the financial year looms. Now is the least likely time for the
Department of Disability Services to be spending money. My illness is ill timed indeed. And so I sit
wait on a hospital waiting list trapped in my home until doctors clearance
grants me freedom to move about independently in the community again.
