Access: Some aspects of New Zealand's disability history - part two
103 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 Newer→ Last
-
The follow-up - DHB mysteriously finds it can do the job right away after some publicity.
Maybe the swimming pool wasn't in NZ? Still don't know how a DHB is responsible for other than older people's support services.
-
Rosemary McDonald, in reply to
It would seem to me that this lass fits either in MOH:DSS or ACC. More questions than answers here. Surely to god there must be a better way of securing basic bleeding needs than having to go to the media?
In an ideal world, there would be an organisation representing dissabled people....au fait with the variety of impairments and requisitries to leading a ' normal' life...to whom a disabled person to go to for advice, advocacy and if necessary...non violent direct activism.
THEN...we would see a small army decend upon this house with timber and tools and know how to build the damn ramp....
-
For those who are interested to read more, Alison Riseborough's VUW history thesis details the beginnings of the IHC. She got to see source documents including, if memory serves me, the Anyon papers. Not all theses are readable, but hers is. And no, I don't remember the exact title.
-
I don't understand where the DHB comes in. It'll be Taikura or ACC using Accessable. If you are not the sort of person who can keep reminding and pushing the system along, these things can and do take years with both Taikura and ACC. One of my neighbours waited years to get a ramp so that they could get a mobility impaired adult in and out of the house safely- he died months after the ramp arrived. The kitset metal ramp subsequently took little time to be disassembled and taken away. Another neighbour is covered by ACC and is still waiting for wheelchair access to his unit about three years after his doctor told him not to keep walking on his prosthetic because walking is causing further spinal nerve damage. The small outside lift required has been promised for February but I'll believe it when I see it, promises have been made and broken time and time again.
Unless you have enough energy above what it takes to manage each day, and the fortitude and attitude to keep pestering the agencies, it's not unusual in my experience for essential ramps to take years. Most people don't want to publicise their situation or to complain and they shouldn't have to. The system just doesn't work well for those who need it most. -
Although physical disability was not as shameful to families as intellectual disability, services were often hard to find.
Shame. That's my understanding of the cultural response to disability in the Islands, correct me if I'm wrong.
When you look back you see how much things have (slowly) changed for the better. I was struck by the thought that if my daughter had been born and diagnosed only a few years earlier, I would have been pressured to give her up, it's an impossibly destructive concept, all of our lives would have been blighted.
-
Sacha, in reply to
DHBs are responsible for adults 65 and over like NASCs are for younger. May also be an intellectual impairment-related RIDCA contract that the DHB is somehow providing directly. Must be factors here we haven't heard yet.
And yes, the biggest gaps are the coordination between agencies and advocacy on behalf of the actual disabled person and their family to get what they're entitled to.
Whanau Ora addresses much the same gaps, as do a few scattered disability 'pilot projects' which mainly seem to help delay the system facing more widespread change. We already know more than enough about what would work better. Have done for years. Getting on with it requires coherent commitment and more leadership all round (govt, agencies, workers, community) than is on offer.
-
Sacha, in reply to
In an ideal world, there would be an organisation representing dissabled people....au fait with the variety of impairments and requisitries to leading a ' normal' life...to whom a disabled person to go to for advice, advocacy and if necessary...non violent direct activism.
Those things don't have to be provided by one organisation, but navigating answers sure requires a properly-resourced core advocacy service. A Disability Commission with teeth has also been proposed for some time to pull all govt agencies into line.
Our activism should be for big changes, not individual pieces of equipment.
-
Angela Hart, in reply to
Our activism should be for big changes, not individual pieces of equipment.
+1
-
Thanks for this history Hilary. A further note on the Disabled Persons Community Welfare Act 1975 is that while JB Monro shepherded it through parliament, the brains behind it was Quentin Angus, lawyer and brother of painter Rita, of Palmerston North. Quentin worked extensively on drafting the DCPW Bill which JB took to the House. Quentin was also keen to set up a NZ branch of DPI in the early 1980s but put his energies into forming DPA. He is a key figure in the emancipation of disabled people and disability rights in Aotearoa NZ and we should not forget him.
-
Sacha, in reply to
Quentin Angus, lawyer and brother of painter Rita
Good point thanks, Martin. Does her art reflect that personal relationship with disability?
-
Russell Brown, in reply to
I wonder why, if her brain injury is the result of falling into a swimming pool…this young lass isn’t covered by ACC?
Indeed. My former neighbour got a ramp for his Housing NZ duplex funded by ACC, so after he died the flat was wheelchair-ready for the next tenant.
-
Sacha, in reply to
That's a basic legal requirement for every new dwelling in the UK (but not here). As you say, housing gets re-used.
-
Hilary Stace, in reply to
Can't think of any of her paintings with disability themes, but she did do a lovely portrait of Quentin http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/exhibitions/RitaAngus/Artworks.aspx?irn=709
-
Sacha, in reply to
Thank you
-
Rosemary McDonald, in reply to
We already know more than enough about what would work better. Have done for years. Getting on with it requires coherent commitment and more leadership all round (
"Our activism should be for big changes, not individual pieces of equipment "
YES...we do Sacha....so why does the system demand that we usually end up having to battle (either individually, or collectively through a media campaign) for practically every piece of equipment, or hour of funded care, or home modification.....????
Simply....there is no " entitlement" to anything, unless your disability is ACC covered, and even then it would seem that some ACC claimants have an easier path than others.
The "big changes", that have already been fought for, resulting in the Convention and the Strategy and the Public Health and Disability Act ( the original, NOT the bastard mutation we have now), ACC, and any other sounds good feelgood pieces of work, have resulted in what?
Documents that promise supports, but stop short of actually giving us legal entitlements.
That is why we keep having to go into the trenches to fight yet another round.
Back on my particular soapbox....the Atkinson and Others versus the Ministry of Health case...this was a direct attempt to clarify in a legal arena the entitlement to funded care for those who had been assessed as needing X number of hours of care to meet at least their core needs. And yes, all three legal bodies agreed that that if Y could be paid for providing X hours of care then Z ( a family member) should be treated like Y. Thereby establishing an entitlement to funded care (providing the hoops have been jumped through) for A, the person with the disability who meets the eligiability requirements for funded supports.
The Government response to those decisions was to effectively disentitle A to funded supports if they have Zs. The new version of the Act states "generally families are responsible for their disabled family members." ( someone could check that wording...I am sans my laptop), but that IS the gist.
I firmly believe that the true ramifications of that vile and filthy piece of legislative work have yet to be felt.
-
Rosemary McDonald, in reply to
This document indicates some of the thinking of Treasury and the Government.
Well worth a read.
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/government/longterm/fiscalposition/2013/pdfs/ltfs-13-bg-lcfs.pdf
-
Kimberly Centre gest a new lease on life.....
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/65109228/Couple-plan-respite-centre-for-children
-
Hilary Stace, in reply to
That Kimberley site has too many ghosts. As well as unmarked graves.
-
Joe Wylie, in reply to
Kimberly Centre gest a new lease on life…..
I was wondering when someone was going to get around to linking to that.
That Kimberley site has too many ghosts. As well as unmarked graves.
Too many living people with genuine recollections to treat the place as a kind of terra nullius. Also when do these graves date from, and please, where precisely are they? I'm pretty familiar with the geography.
-
Seems disrespectful, as if Kimberley's past is of no importance nowadays.
-
Worth a visit to their facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/Rainbowsrespite (open access, no need to have fb account)
Very good background to the genesis of this project.
Although, I wonder if they understand there may be some sensitivity required.
Having said that...this is what is said about everyone's favourite former Minister of Health....
." But how would he know that?? He's just the dickhead running the show and earning a big, fat, tax-payer funded salary for doing so!! GRRRRRR!!! "
Really worth a read.
-
Joe Wylie, in reply to
Worth a visit to their facebook page.
Thank you. That appears to be the former single men's staff quarters, built in the early 1960s, in the background.
-
Angela Hart, in reply to
Thanks Rosemary, well worth a read and they're not the only special needs family to have encountered the obstructive misdirection of Mr Ryall, who was at least consistent. Good riddance!
I had already heard of this project but didn't realise they intend to use Kimberley ground. I'm not sure about the wisdom of that. I'd want a tapu lifting ceremony or a blessing of some sort, even though I'm not religious or superstitious, but bad things happened there and there needs to be some sort of symbolic new beginning. Hopefully they are sensitive to that. -
Hilary Stace, in reply to
My information comes from People First who are not happy about the use of this site.
-
Joe Wylie, in reply to
My information comes from People First who are not happy about the use of this site.
It’s not so long ago that unhallowed human remains could be found around the Kimberley area. On a trip to nearby bushland in the late 1950s a party of inmates from the then Levin Hospital and Training School discovered the skeleton of someone who’d apparently climbed a tree and died there. An indication of how long it had been there was that the tree had partially grown around the bones.
Human bones were often washed onto the shingle banks of the Ohau River at the Tararua end of Kimberley Road. I remember a picnic taking a sombre turn when my mother shouted at my brother to drop the human femur he was innocently waving about. As kids we’d assumed they were animal bones, but a trained nurse knew better.
Those bones dated from the time of Te Rauparaha’s wars with the Muaupoko. I have never, repeat never ever, heard any suggestion that anyone is buried on the Kimberley site. Given the former population density of the place, and the freedom of movement accorded to privileged inmates, there would have been major problems keeping a practice of midnight burials secret.
If People First’s narrative of what Kimberley should become is to prevail then surely it should do so on its merits, rather than introducing the kind of allegations that seem disturbingly reminiscent of the Peter Ellis case. Claiming that some kind of clandestine burials took place has serious implications of criminal behaviour. To imply that such things were standard practice is downright mischievous.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.