Chris Steel
Chair
Standing Committee on Health, Ageing and Community Services
The Chair and Members of the Standing Committee
Whilst I will always be very appreciative that I was accepted into the NDIS, there have been times when I felt so stressed over the NDIS that I wanted nothing more to do with it. However, my partner and physiotherapist both encouraged me to continue. I must say I am very pleased that I now have a contact person at Feros Care I can call should I encounter a problem with my NDIS.
As mentioned I did struggle in self-managing in the first 2 years and trying to contact NDIS staff was not easy as they were, I understand, overwhelmed with the number of people joining NDIS. I am really pleased I continued to self-manage as I have learnt a lot of new skills in managing my budget and using a computer. However, my experience with service providers has led me to believe that while there must be some caring and honest providers, I feel the majority are not about the client but profit. I decided after engaging 2 service providers at different times to assist me that I would be much better off finding my own support. Examples of my experiences with service providers included:
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Getting service providers to understand the scope and range of my disabilities was a challenge.
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Not having a choice in who was sent in to help me despite providers telling me I would have a choice.
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Waiting in bed for support workers to turn up.
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Different support workers being sent and my carer having to train someone who would only turn up once.
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Support workers not turning up at all.
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Support workers who had little or no understanding of my challenges/condition being sent to assist me.
- Support workers treating me as though I was not a competent person despite my carer
instructing support workers that I was able to tell workers what I needed and how I wanted things done.
8. Support workers turning up with coughs/flu despite clearly telling service provider that I
would be put at risk of infection due to having a suppressed immune system.
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Every different worker that came in had to be trained by my husband/carer in how to assist me and sometimes the worker only turned up once. This was stressful and tiring on both my husband and me. His experience was that it was necessary to train a support worker 3 to 4 times before they could competently assist me without causing me pain or injury.
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Following a single car accident in a support worker’s car (the support worker was speeding in wet conditions), in which I was a passenger in 2015, I was left traumatized and felt I could not mentally handle any further experience in having a support worker come into my life. I did not take legal action in relation to this matter as both my husband and I could not have coped with the stress.
In 2017 I decided to try and find a support worker through an agency as I could see that all the extra care was taking a toll on my husband. I rang over 12 agencies but only one said they could help. Whilst the agency sent me a delightful young woman, she frequently did not turn up, and the agency did not let us know on more than 5 occasions that she would not be coming in to help me. We found this situation very unsatisfactory and I did not continue with this service provider.
In June 2017, I was very fortunate to meet a young woman who was both keen and interested in learning to assist me. She has contracted to provide me with personal care and domestic assistance and I (as well as my husband/carer) am very pleased with the care I am receiving. I now have a better quality of life and feel I am part of the community again and do many of the things (with her help) that I was previously unable to partake in. I am about to have another young woman trained to assist me so I have a second support worker. There can be no doubt that my physical health has also improved due to the expertise and guidance of the physiotherapist who has advised and encouraged me.
Before closing, I feel it is important to raise the issue of insurance in relation to having a contractor or support worker come into your home to assist a person with disabilities. We had been under the impression that our NRMA house and contents insurance covered us for having domestic workers and contractors come into our home to provide a service. However. we recently found that we were not covered and had there been an accident in our home, and had any litigation had occurred, it would have caused severe financial hardship to us even to the point of having to lose all our assets including our home. The NDIS did not at any time tell us that we had to take out insurance to cover workers. The only help I was given to self-manage was how to make a claim and I was instructed to keep all
receipts and bank statements. I believe it is very important that NDIS advise all self-managed
participants to take out appropriate insurance.
I thank you for the opportunity to be able to report on both the positive and negative experiences of my participation in the NDIS. However, I feel very concerned for NDIS participants whose lives are managed by service providers (and are unable to speak up for themselves) because I believe not all service providers are doing the right thing for participants, and participants have to fit in with service providers when the NDIS scheme was supposed to improve the quality of life of participants.