Choices

You’re life! You’re Choice! Is the name scribble across the document Your Choice, but these words are meaningless to hundreds of Queenslanders with a disability and their families who struggle to gain the support just for the basics needs, like a support worker to get them out of bed.  Make no mistake the disability funding system in Queensland is critical ill and has been for 20 years.

It a System where the needs of people with disabilities and there families by the departments our admission can not be meet by current funding levels. Consecutive Queensland State Governments and policies makers have failed in there attempts to address the growing needs support needs of people with disabilities.

From my view vantage polices made surrounding the needs of people with disabilities swing from individuals having power over decision making process back to organisations being the major stakeholder in the decision making process.

Despite the rhetoric under the current “Growing Stronger System” the decision making processes that surround our lifestyle choices and support needs, lay at the feet of public servants making and currently in Queensland may positions are being axed, its a frighten time to be living in the state. Decisions about our personal lives with a file no. due to privacy our names are not on files.  In a true reality people with disabilities support needs are reduce to a dollar amount attached to a faceless number on a file. See (     A better disability system) for relevant documents.

Recently I was speaking to a Senator about the NDIS before Campbell Newmann made a half-hearted bid to support the introduction of the NDIS. It at these times I want to throw my hands in the air and say ‘there are no answers’; to ensure individuals with a disability have the right to identify and be supported to gain a lifestyle of their choosing.

The senator informed me that per head of capture a people with a disability receives on average $2000 per head, per year. If the government is spending around $20 000 per year on my care that’s 6 to 8 people with disabilities and their families that receive nothing at all.

The current system is at such a crisis point in Queensland that many public servants in the department admit its is irreparable.  While the State government remains primary responsible for the care of people with disabilities, it at best can only offer a few band-aids of inappropriate care.

From the late 1970’s when our larger care institutions close its door, the Queensland government had it wrong from day one and thus has struggled ever since to correct the balance to provide support to everyone who needs too. In the main the department was originally support people with a disability to move out of institutional care and living in the community.  These costs were hugely over estimated resulting individuals given amounts of money they could never spend. However, initially the money was assigned to individuals and was not attempted to be based on individual need.  So people previously living in state care were assign packages that don’t need, don’t used and can’t be taken from them. The people given life time packages in late 1970’s and 1980’s under then legislation retrain their funding until their death, until the time of their passing the money sits in a government bank account. Thankfully that kind of rational and individual lifestyle packages no longer granted.

This fundamental floor was compounded by a failure to include in its a system that catered from people with a disability not previously living in state care, people born after 1980 with a disability or those who acquired a disability during their lifetime. Is it any wonder a system founded on two fundamental floors is irreparable?

By its own admission the current system of disability support is layered system where individuals are locked into rules the funding system which they were originally granted funding. Under such a fractured arrangement funding can never fairly be divided. No wonder there is opposition to the NDIS and a healthy sense of skepticism.  

So lays the misconception the all people with a disability are funded on a level playing flied and if you need help you get it. The truth is gaining a faction of the help needed, is like winning the lotto!’ I wouldn’t pretend to able to explain to you in any more detail how funding is structured, this comes from my own very limited understanding.

My point is to dispel the notion that Queenslanders with a disability have the same ability to make lifestyle choices as my readers.  Most of us like to think we have a choice in where we live and the type of accommodation, to my horror I discovered this is not presently the case for people with a disability in Queensland, who have high level care needs.

For those needing more than 8 hours per day support, choices increasingly become limited.  Last night I learnt of the plight of a young women of a disability who has increased support needs and has been offered a placement in a group home hours from her current home, because ‘that’s where a place  is available. If she declines the offer she losses all existing supports, including assistance to get out of bed in the morning.   Not only is this women about to loss her ‘own home’ and her independence but she will be removed for her ‘natural support networks’ and existing friends.    

No consultation and no choices, rather blackmail move or receive no support at all. I admit this is here say and I have no details of how the miscarry of justice has occurred. I can only stab in the dark to say she has no individualized funding and it is linked, like my to the service provider. Gone are the days where offers must be in a set geographical area.  My community link officer has said she had to offer people living in Ipswich placement in a day service in Toowoomba knowing it is impractical.  As to how they can legally withdraw current services from this poor lady, I am unsure. All I know under the growing stronger legislation people with disabilities seem dis-empowered to make choices about their own lives.

I am hoping to write a series of ‘posts’ aim at helping others outside ‘the system’ to understand our plight. The disability system is without rhythm or reason.  If you have a questions please let a comment if there is an answer I’ll track it down but often the an answer defy logic. . . Welcome to our world.