Posts by Angela Hart
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Thanks for this post Rosemary.
Looking at the document, what comes across to me is that the Ministry of Health's overriding number one priority is keeping cost under control. Not, as you might expect, supporting health.
It says that the risks a disabled person may encounter by continuing to live in their own home are the disabled person's choice- but it says nothing about the risks of "choosing" residential care.
The number of very high needs Ministry of Health clients is not great, but for those that I know, residential care would be a death sentence, most likely for the body, but if that should happen to survive for any length of time, then very rapidly for the wairua.
If there was a respectful, honest and sincere effort on the part of the Ministry to cater for people with disabilities, including those with high and very high needs, surely the risks of all types of support would be taken into account. I'm not seeing that with these guidelines, just a very strong incentive for NASCs to keep support packages below 80K regardless of the safety, needs or desires of the disabled person.
I'd like to know just exactly what qualifies a person with a disability to be permitted to live alone in the Ministry's eyes. And I can't help but compare with ACC's management of people with high spinal chord injuries, who have access to the supports they need and who live lives of their own choosing. Several of our friends who are entitled - yes entitled, not just eligible - to 24/7 support through ACC choose not to use it because they can manage and feel more in control of their daily lives with a lesser amount of carefully targetted support.
If the Ministry of Health's priority was health rather than cost and it engaged sensibly with high needs disabled people and their families it would find that a more open and flexible approach yields far better results and often for lower cost. Most of us are not out for everything we can get, we just want and need safe, secure and empathetic support for our loved ones.
The trouble is our experiences have taught us not to trust the Ministry or its agents, the NASCs, and they choose not to trust us. (See Sunday for how the MoH has ripped off Cliff Robinson- again- https://www.tvnz.co.nz/ondemand/sunday/27-11-2016/series-2016-episode-42 )
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Kay, it's great to hear from you and terrible to understand how the system operates.
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I was beginning to wonder if there were two Jordon Williams, something like Jekyll and Hyde.
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Thanks Kyle, for this post and for taking action to get the problems addressed. Most of us connect with the mental health system either directly or through loved ones, and we need a functional system. We lost a good friend to suicide through inadequate support for a known mental health issue.
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At grassroots level Parafed is by far the more important organisation for physical disability sport and recreation. Halberg has focussed on high performance and that has resulted in high visibility this year, largely because of Attitude Picture's coup in getting the screening rights here.
But without appropriate support at grassroots, elite sport doesn't happen. Chris Rattue makes a good point in the article Howard Edwards has linked to above.
Because of its choice to promote high performance sport and because of the Halberg Awards, Halberg is known to most people. Parafed is much less well known, and much less well funded. That needs to change if we are to keep our Paralympic dreams.
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There's a welcome home parade planned for tomorrow, Friday, at the AUT Millennium Centre on the North Shore
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/sport/313890/paralympic-heroes-return-home-from-rio-games
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Great post Paul, I couldn't agree more.
At the moment because of yet another battle we are fighting, the line
As well as investigating and holding to account those who make decisions which are important in disabled people's lives.
resonates particularly strongly. In the world of disability support the system is monopolistic, meaning there is no alternative, and there is no objective review process. Powerlessness of the disabled person is built in.
Paralympians, like Olympians, are a small elite peak performance group, which most of us recognise can never include us. But we can and do admire them and they certainly deserve it. It was fantastic being able to see the Paralympics on free to air TV. Sport has enormous benefits to all those who participate, not just related to physical fitness but social benefits and access to others' knowledge and experience. For people who are often isolated by society, disability sport is a multi-purpose positive activity.
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Access: Disability abuse: it’s not OK, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
Two years later the HDC report agrees Rosemary, Nathan should never have been left alone in the bath, but two years down the track, what have the consequences of this negligent care been to the caregivers and their employer? Are the current crop of people being cared for in this place any safer than Nathan was?
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Access: Patients X, Y and Z, in reply to Sacha,
or even just a conscience
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Access: Patients X, Y and Z, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
There's no doubt in my mind that most of the decision makers and those who advise them are so far removed from our world that really they have no clue. They may think they do, but they are deluded. Some indefinite but compulsory time spent experiencing the realities would do them and us a world of good.