From: To: Community Affairs, Committee (SEN); Subject: sub889Submission to the Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill 2012 Date: Thursday, 17 January 2013 12:43:41 PM
Please consider this email a formal submission by me to the Senate Standing
Committee on Community Affairs Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance
Scheme Bill 2012.
The current disability system has many problems that need to be addressed.
The reason the current system does not work for our family is because of the middleman. Many of the dollars that are provided for my partners care goes into the administration of his program and providing of carers. Most of the time over the past eighteen years the service providers have taken a huge cut for doing very little and most of the time could not supply the support that was needed. I believe in some situations the money could be given straight to the family to provide the support that is needed privately. Yes there is some families that you would not do this for as they would waste the money and then they would have nothing. Maybe the way around this is to employ an advocate / casemanager / administrator to manage the case and the finances. This way you would cut out the middle people that take their cut before it gets to the client. The other frustrating part is when the family member has to show or tell the professional person who is getting paid a huge amount to do the assessments what to do and how to do it. The person that knows the clients needs is the carer or the family. Listen to them. The other thing is the lack of emergency respite facillities for the disabled. Many of the carers are family and if the family member gets sick or hit by a bus there is nowhere for the disabled person to go to get looked after while the family member/ carer gets better. This is a major problem in the country areas because clients can no longer be admitted to hospital for respite reasons. The government needs to look at and fund the most important things first like health and schools rather than sending money over seas . Worry about Australia first if there is any money left after then maybe consider overseas.
The main features of the NDIS that will make a difference to the community are:
Ensure support and equipment is available when needed, People with disability can choose who comes into their home, Less red tape, with planning done locally by people who know their community
The most important services for the NDIS to provide are:
Equipment and home/vehicle modifications, Support for families and carers, Flexible in-home/outside home respite
I support the introduction of the NDIS.
Hopefully it will be much better for the clients. Please do not waste the money by giving it to the middle men to take their cut out. Work on giving the money directly to the clients even if it has to be through an administrator. But be aware of the administrators costs as some of the company’s that offer this service the fees are over the top. I think it will be a fairer system for all the disabled clients.
I agree for my submission to be made public