FYI: If hell freezes over before you’re 65, you will be ineligible to apply. Just food for thought.
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I understand the cutoff age, I don’t think while at least the LNP are in power that there will be any improvements.
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Another NDIS disaster.
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If it weren’t bad enough, many of the companies which have won the contracts to do the independent assessments have clear conflicts of interest although they are seperate legal entities within one business group.
How can NDIS participants ever be confident that the assessments will be fair if the assessors’ business group will be affected by their decisions? There will always be that lingering doubt whether ‘other interests’ determined the outcome, rather than soley for the best interests of the participant.
I wonder if there is a performance dividend buried in the process. That is, the assessors will be paid a bonus based on the money that they save the NDIA and hence the Government?
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It would seem that this Government has learnt that a statement of regret, and ‘we will look into it’, will quickly defuse the energy around an issue. They then can push that issue away into the background and not do anything about it, until it bubbles to the surface again.
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When the system is working like this they don’t seem to need much ‘confidence’ of how it is intended to go. They have evidence of techniques used to marginalise them.
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It just keeps on getting more murky.
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Another disgraceful NDIS case.
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As the coalition squeezes NDIS, want to punt how many votes will shift from them to the ALP as a result? I reckon not many, even in the few swing seats that decide elections.
The conservative core who buys into the coalition as better economic managers will be celebrating that the ‘hard decision’ to live within the means has been made, solidifying the vision of the status quo.
I doubt any number of ‘disgraceful cases’ is going to change that.
If I am wrong and there is enough swing to the ALP for them to take government I doubt they will do much different when faced with the costs of NDIS, excepting how they work to reign in the cost; usually they work with a much less blunt object than the coalition is known to use.
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Another article regarding the NDIS shambles.
As operational health services principally and currently sits with the States and the states now admit that find managing health challenging, maybe the Commonwealth should change the constitution and do a full take over of Australian health services. This is a situation, if it eventuates, is not something to look forward to from past history of the Commonwealth being a service delivery organisation.
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Except NDIS is Federal not State it also pays for more than just State Health services that usually include things such as Drs, Nurses, Hospitals. NDIS pays carers, cleaners, social care visitors (such as provided by BlueCare) which isn’t free, shopping assistance, transport assistance, NDIS pays for services that otherwise have limits or attached costs on them, NDIS helps pay for aids not always accessible under State care systems and further again reminding that NDIS is Federal funding not State Funding.
It already is a Federal mess with NDIS looking to save money by exiting clients from the system some of which is by making it harder to get the funding needed but also making new clients jump through extreme hoops of difficulty, having it’s budget taken to try and produce a LNP Federal Surplus a few years ago and not yet restored. It already rests in Federal hands and it is a shambolic mess.
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Looking from the point of view of a NDIS participant, having talked to service providers; it is getting harder and harder just to maintain funding for clients. The Government through the NDIA keeps changing the ground rules to make it more and more onerous and difficult to get funding.
Before the NDIS came to Queensland I tried to get assistance from Qld Health, but I didn’t fit into any of their funding programmes which were for specific issues. I can’t remember the details, but as an example there was support of some form if one leg was shorter than the other by 1cm. There was another line of support if you had an amputation. But there was no support if your leg was more than 1cm shorter, but you hadn’t had an amputation. When NDIS arrived, I was accepted first try.
The black holes in the system also worked the other way, where I knew a man who had a below the elbow amputation and wore a prosthetic with a claw at the end. The prosthetic had to be replaced every two years. This was done through Qld Health. When the NDIS came in, Qld Health no longer provided the prosthesis because NDIS would. When I last spoke to him, his application had been rejected eight times by NDIS because they did not consider him as disabled. I lost contact with him, so I don’t know if he ever managed to get in.
I think the LNP see the NDIS participants and the Aged as soft targets. I also think that the LNP beleive that few Australians will change their voting patterns because of the perceived provlems with Aged Care or the NDIS. Therefore the LNP are willing to sacrifice the aged and the disabled to save money.
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Another bad news NDIS article.
The article reminded about a local Hmong person who I saw yesterday.
Whilst all the Hmongs are very short, he would not be any taller than 140cm.
Some years ago, he used to drive an old Mercedes 420S sedan and he had to look under the top of the steering wheel.
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More NDIS problems.
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I am sure that more and more tales of woe will come out in the enquiry.
The one thing that I am sure about is that there is NO quality assurance or consistency within the NDIA, LACs (Local Area Co-ordinators who represent the NDIA to clients) or across NDIS providers. There are exceptional individuals and businesses, and there are abysmal ones. There are generous ones and there are unscrupulously greedy ones.
Quality assurance needs to be introduced and has to be independent of the NDIA/NDIS.
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I have a friend on the NDIS. Her needs were assessed independent of her carer/husband when they did the package. She protested that with his help she could get nearly all housework and travel done, but nevertheless she was granted a $76,000 package and the provider has been pressuring her to take more services. These are mainly contractors - eg lawn & garden care, low paid home help, and assets like another mobility scooter (already had two). She’s upset at the waste.
Meanwhile I have another friend who in her 60’s had to find work. She started work with an NDIS provider this year. The pay is very low, in fact, if she is right, she is on less than the minimum wage. She has broken shifts where she works for an hour, then has to travel in her own car at her own expense to another client and wait two hours to do two hours. One of her shifts required her to do 3 hours cooking, washing, feeding, dressing and putting the client to bed. Then she had to spend the night there in case the client needed anything (unpaid) and in the morning the same duties. She gets a mileage allowance to the first client but not to any others, she is expected to do her reports in her own time on her own computer. She is yet to earn more than the dole and hasn’t counted the other costs.
The week I spoke to her she said the company was starting 18 new employees. She has to pay for her own on-line training for Cert III in Aged Care and Disability. She got one client visit with a supervisor as “training” before being thrown in the deep end.
The Award and treatment of staff needs to be part of the review.
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Absolutely disgraceful.
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Another article regarding the NDIS joke.
“It has taken me three months to get the reports to substantiate that I have no legs. It has taken me an exhaustive amount of time.”
“I got questioned if my amputation was permanent by Centrelink staff at one stage.”
What an absolute disgrace.
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Even the Disability Discrimination Commissioner thinks that the NDIS sucks.
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