Posts by Rosemary McDonald
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Access: Paying Family Carers - What was…, in reply to Christine Peet,
This might be of interest to you Christine,
NZ research with those with Spinal Injuries....(or any kind of spinal cord impairment!).
The best bits are the comments from the disabled people.
And, give some thought to IF as Angela Hart suggests. The best benefit of IF (I am told) is that you can pay your (best) carers at a higher rate than the agencies pay.
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Access: Paying Family Carers - What was…, in reply to Christine Peet,
Well said Christine, and I couldn't agree more.
I have had numerous conversations with parents of children with significant care needs and all express the same concerns. "What happens to Fred when I'm gone?"
No one is going to care for you more than those who care about you.
Providers appear to be under no obligation to meet even minimum standards of care, and can even cause the death of disabled people without being held to account.
This must change. Failures of service provision must attract penalties and cancelling of lucrative contracts for serious, avoidable harm should be the norm.
Serious failures resulting in death have to attract criminal charges.
Only when people with disabilities know that their lives are valued will they be able have trust in non family care.
I applaud the drive by DPOs to encourage young disabled people to live independantly, cut the apron strings and make their own way in the world.
However, for some disabled "ïndependance" is merely a concept, their care needs are such that they will always require the assistance of another person.
In such cases, the disabled person must have the RIGHT to choose the people who provide the necessary care.
Thats what the Family Carers Case was all about.
Thank you for responding Christine, I look forward to your next post.
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Speaker: How is Government evaluating…, in reply to Marc C,
I have read as much as humanly possible from your link to the nzsocialjusticeblog, especially the bits about medical assessments, and the interesting connections with ACC.
Puts me in mind of an article written by Audrey Young way back in 2010.
An interview with Bill English....just hitting his straps as Minister of Finance."As examples he cites work being done at Housing New Zealand and specifically at the Ministry of Social Development by the welfare working advisory group looking at the big driver of future costs: long-term invalids and sickness beneficiaries, a group he describes as "this big hard lump of long-term waste of human potential".
He goes on to say, "If they were ACC customers, we would be spending a lot of money on trying to move them. They cost a bit less on sickness and invalids [benefits], not a hell of a lot less, but we do nothing and we are actually doing nothing to reduce this very large long-term liability."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10644993
While trying to catch up on my reading, I checked out Sacha's blog and found this gem....The scheme(ACC) also displayed the morality of its founders. Here’s Sir Owen in a 2012 interview:
“The social responsibilities which underpin ACC ought never to be tested by clever equations, or brushed to one side by economic dogma. In the end, they depend on decent fellow feeling and the ideas and ideals that support it.”
Pity Uncle Bill failed to take THAT cue from ACC.
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Access: Disability abuse: it’s not OK, in reply to Hilary Stace,
"ILF recipient Kevin Caulfield said: "Changes brought in by this government herald the end of independent living for disabled people and the return to a segregated society where disabled people are warehoused away.
"Ironically, at a time when the public is up in arms about abuse in care homes, current government policy will return disabled people to exactly those places where we are most at risk of abuse.
"Disabled people fought hard over many years to fight our way out of the institutions to live and participate alongside our families and friends. We won't go back. We will fight back."""
The same can be said about here in Godzone....exactly the same.
Come on NZ disabled....grow some and organise!
Do NOT rely on the government funded DPOs to defend you...
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A very quick reply to those who have taken the trouble to respond to my post. Forgive brevity and clumsiness...I am using my daughters lappy...and Windows 8...which appears to be designed by the Marquis de Sade.
Peter and I spend most of our time in our converted Bus...travelling and freedom camping and generally living a lot more cheaply than if we were living in our house. We really enjoy this life...has its challenges...but so much better than sitting at home waiting for another financial axe to fall.
Also, we get to have many conversations about living with disability with all manner of folk....a wheelchair emerging from the bowels of a 7m Bus tends to attract a bit of attention.
Dear Uncle Tony and Whaea Tariana.....things are NOT all rosy in the disability garden, and you guys need to lift your game toot sweet.
Also, Whaea Hekia, we have been in the Far North for the past couple of months....YOU need to lift YOUR game too. No surprises when listening to the school principal from the north on Natrad this am. (sorry, I dare not even attempt to find a link)
The Numbers....when we get back to our non mobile home (today, maybe) I will attempt to put together Part Two of this thread. Interesting documents out there that shed a little light on where the MOH got the numbers from, and how the numbers were significantly modified along the path to the PHDAct legislation.
Finally....I may have to give a bit of an apology to Tariana Turia.
Peter and I had an unplanned conversation with Ms. Turia the other day.
We found her to be attentive, informed and empathetic with the issue under discussion at the time.
I have been quite scathing of her performance as the Minister for Disability Issues....perhaps I have been a tad harsh.
I stand by my assertion that her speech writers do her no favours with the pap lines and stock responses, but kanohi ki kanohi, I got the feeling that she actually gives a shit.
Maybe outside of Parliament?????
Again, thanks to those who responded to this post...I will work on part 2.
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Kirsty Johnston richly deserves the Cannon Award for her articles on the treatment of vulnerable disabled at the hands of MOH contracted providers. The input of Colin Burgering from the Justice Action Group must also be acknowledged.
The reaction from Claire Teague from the New Zealand Disability Support Network disgust me. From her July 2013 Newsletter....
"The recent media revisiting of a number of incidents that have occurred over the last four or five years seems to have abated. I’m concerned at the apparent lack of balance and natural justice of some media coverage, while others have really done a lot of preparation to present different viewpoints, such as the Radio New Zealand Insight programme. We’ve had a meeting with MoH officials to discuss what we can collaboratively do to restore a perceived lack of confidence in providers."
What exactly does she mean by "perceived"?
I see the last sentence of Teague's statement to be a declaration that her organisation and MOH are going to get their heads together, not to improve the standard of care from contracted providers, but to work on their combined public images.
! Bullshit avalanche alert!
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Thanks Hilary...I confess to having only heard the "commended the courage of disabled people ." bit on the radio when the report was released, hadn't realised that Tariana's spin doctors had gone to so much trouble to put such an inappropriately positive spin on what is actually a damning report.
The Roguski report....and I am in no way criticising the content....says nothing new.
And every time such a report is released, some Minister pops up and says how things are going to get so much better now the research is done and the data collated and the Advisory Group has made its recommendations...
Yeah right.
I want to see perpetrators of violence towards disabled people held accountable through the Courts. I want to see those who assault, neglect and terrorise vulnerable people punished to a greater extent of the law than those who commit similar crimes towards animals.
A young mother who answers the phone and her baby drowns in the bath is charged by the police and goes to trial.
A severely disabled person drowns in a bath in a care facility and the police find no grounds for criminal charges.
WTF?
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Funny that the Tairawhiti report is the topic of conversation here. In the absence of reliable internetconnectivity whilst on the road I have been keeping my three brain cells stimulated by reading some of the reports on my hard drive. I remember the Roguski report's release....again we were on the road, but made the effort to download as soon as possible.
Do I recall correctly that at the time, Whaea Tariana was quoted as saying, in response to the report, along the lines of "I am pleased to see that disabled people are able to speak out about abuse"...???
She said little about the actual content of the report.
Most concerning to me was the depth of disconnection between carers and the people being cared for....especially in residential facilities. The most telling comments came from senior management when talking about the attitudes of some of their staff.
I also have a problem with the language used when discussing this issue.
Physical abuse is ASSAULT.
Financial abuse is THEFT.
Avoidable deaths at the hands of providers is NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE.
If we insist on the correct terminology....perhaps the issue of crimes against disabled people will be taken more seriously by the wider community.
Very timely raising of this issue Hilary, with the Health and Disability Commission conference coming up.
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Access: Your Relationship With Disability, in reply to Sacha,
One of those honoured recently posted on how the days of activism on disability issues have passed and now conversations are being had between disabled and the power brokers .Link?
Unfortunately Sacha this posting was on the DPA NZ facebook page. A page I was eventually removed from by the moderators. This was not an unexpected rejection as I had repeatedly challenged the status quo. What got me thrown off this page was not my usual challenging the lack of outrage about neglect and abuse and homicide of disabled people in care, but when at my partners instigation, I was foolish enough to describe almost exactly the type of care required by a person with a high spinal cord injury....considered to be too "yucky" for DPA NZ. This was during a discussion about a certain TV programme about disability which tends to favour "happy clappy crips do good" stories rather than tell the less pleasant but infinitely more relevant stories.
Perhaps someone who is a member of that page could go back through postings and send you the link? Or verify my (edited) quote.
I have de- facebooked myself so I am unable to help.
This was a large and carefully considered post by this particular person. It pointed to a definite shift from activism and advocacy (which was literally bracketed) to the conversations disabled people were now having with the government, a partnership. Perhaps I have been on this earth too long, as I have no faith whatsoever that those conversations will amount to any real or meaningful improvement in the lives of people with high, very high and complex needs.
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Access: Your Relationship With Disability, in reply to Hilary Stace,
That is the biggest disability-related list I have ever seen in an honours list. Good people too. The sector must be getting itself organised about using the nominations process
Hmmm. Most of those from the "sector" receiving gongs for "services to the disabled" are receiving government funding for their "work".
Most of those honoured have not exactly been loud in their criticism of certain government policies that have impacted negatively on some in the disabled community.
Some, who do have a platform from which to highlight the some of the more appalling inequities in the NZ Disability community have chosen NOT to do this much needed work....and have instead used their platform to support and promote government policies that are aspirational at best....a rehash of the usual bullshit at worst.
As a dyed in the wool anti royalist who takes little heed of such crap, I have come to see the handing out of such honours to be the reward the government gives to those who have sung most in tune with the current political score.
One of those honoured recently posted on how the days of activism on disability issues have passed and now conversations are being had between disabled and the power brokers. Advocacy may still have some place, they said.
Tell that to those who have suffered avoidable deaths at the hands of contracted care providers.
Providers who are almost never held accountable for these deaths.
These honoured people were disturbingly quiet when reports of these deaths emerged....almost as if they agreed with the line that such deaths were par for the course with disabled folk.