Disability Clothesline Australia

12.7.24

Dear Senators,

We are writing to you as members of the Disability Clothesline Australia. We are a group of people with disability and families who want to break the silence about violence, abuse and neglect against us. We have been operating since 2010 and work closely with our sister organisation, Disability Clothesline NZ.

We have a long list of people with disability who have died because of violence, abuse and neglect. Many of these deaths happened because of problems with the NDIS. We are seriously concerned that the new NDIS Bill will make these problems worse and put more lives at risk.

The Bill gives the NDIA too much power to cut people off the NDIS and take away their funding. The NDIA can force people to use certain providers, even if they had a bad experience with them before. They can make secret decisions about people’s disabilities and supports. They can force people to pay back money if they don’t like how it was spent.

This is not what the NDIS is meant to be about. It’s meant to give us choice and control over our lives. But this Bill takes that away. It makes it easier for people to fall through the gaps and lose the help they need to stay alive.

We already know that people have died because of problems like this. Here are some of their stories:

breaking the silence

www.disabilityclothesline.weebly.com

P redacted: s47F from South Australia died in terrible pain after being trapped in a chair for over a year. NDIS provider badly neglected Him, stole from redaction box exploited her and eventually killed oO his/her. There was nobody to help access the community — even if it was accessible to people with disability. He/She was not regarded as being exceptionally disabled, but had complex needs that were not considered, including the inability to reach out for help.

o - p redacted: s47F from NSW was found dead after the NDIS cut off funding. They missed one meeting and they stopped his supports without even checking on him/her. He/she had diabetes and schizophrenia but the NDIS didn’t think about whole situation or regard whole-of-person needs. A doctor had also stopped seeing people so he/she had no help in the community.

The neighbours contacted his sister in South Australia when they noticed that the mail had piled up against the door for weeks. she has a very severely disabled person worries what will happen to them if their parents die.

a redacted: s47F from Tasmania died while waiting for the NDIS to give a new bed and chair. He/She was in agony but they did n’t get the equipment needed in time.

op redacted: s47A from Queensland died fighting for a seizure mat that could have saved life. The NDIS wouldn’t listen.

If you pass this Bill, the system will get harder to help from, especially for First Nations people, culturally diverse people and those with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities.

Cutting our funding and making it easier to kick people off the scheme is not a “reform”. It’s dangerous and it goes against what the NDIS is meant to achieve for us.

Please listen to us and oppose this Bill. We are the experts in our lives and we are telling you we will not be safe if it becomes law. No more deaths from neglect and abuse.

We’ve already lost too many.

Disability Clothesline Australia

https://disabilityclothesline.weebly.com/

Attached: Media Release, Bill Shorten, 2021

ANOTHER TRAGIC DEATH BY NEGLECT IN THE NDIS - MONDAY, 28 JUNE, 2021 (billshorten.com.au)

Press release by Bill Shorten, 28 June 2021

NDIS Minister Linda Reynolds and the Morrison Government must explain how a West Australian man was left to die after his family raised the alarm for months that his life was at risk.

                            died on 2 May this year. His family had told the

NDIA arranged support coordinator that was in crisis and needed daily check ups or he could die.

Despite raising the alarm on April 20, who was aged 50 when he died and had uncontrolled diabetes and severe bipolar, was found unconscious by a carer on May 2. He had not been checked on for several days when he was found.

His family have since discovered that approved regular checks on and his partner, who also lives with a severe mental illness, were not being conducted and they do not know how long he was unconscious before he was found.

It is the latest in a series of tragedies in the NDIS caused by eight years of Liberal cuts and privatisation.

Deaths by neglect and delinquency include:

• In South Australia: who died of severe neglect after being left in a cane chair for more than a year.
• In NSW: who was found dead, months after he died, after the NDIS cut off his supports because he did not attend a planning meeting.
• In Tasmania: who in 2018 died in severe pain while waiting for the NDIS to send him a new bed and a chair.
• And in Queensland: who died earlier this year after months of fighting the NDIA for a seizure mat that his family say could have saved his life.

In a letter to the allocated NDIS coordinator on 20 April, the family, who were told by medical experts that needed to move hours away from them to be closer to essential disability services, they begged the authorities to check on him to make sure he was eating and taking his insulin.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024

Submission 55

“Our concern is that he can lose consciousness and if someone is not checking on him daily this could prove fatal,” the J family wrote.

The G[e] family, who he lived with for his entire adult life until June 2020, say the NDIA removing his support services in March 2020 without warning sparked his downward spiral.

As well as pleading to the NDIA and the support coordinator service for help, the Barker family also reached out to Morrison Government Ministers Stuart Robert and Greg Hunt, who did nothing to help them.

This plea was ignored by the Morrison Government. redacted

Only Western Australian Deputy Premier Roger Cook provided support, the family say.

The [Mj family have been abandoned by the Morrison Government after the death of their beloved son and brother.

Despite informing the NDIA of death, it did not make any contact with the family beyond a proforma letter, with references for the family to reach out to Lifeline.

The [ij family were also contacted by the NDIA after [ij death and asked to come in for a planning meeting. The NDIA said it was not aware of his death at that time, despite the family telling the care coordinator provider that he had died and services ceasing.

While we welcome an enquiry by the NDIS watchdog and the coroner, for the family it is too little too late and won’t bring back i.

The family did everything they could to work with the NDIA to ensure fii was getting the care he needed.

Like the other families whose loved ones have died from neglect on the NDIS, the wants to ensure this does not happen to anyone else.