Permanent disability:
management or Improvement of disability tends to require both treatment and support
- not one or the other even where treatment might improve disability symptoms or function, the underlying disability typically still requires support.
where treatment or support are withdrawn, disability may increase.
testing this approach on people with disability is tantamount to torture.
Functional capacity is subjective, the same way that truth in a situation experienced by multiple perspectives can be subjective.
what is one person’s Functional capacity may change depending on life circumstances, life cycles or even by other aspects of health and support. what is Functional capacity for a sedentary person is different to an activecperson. people either disability come in all shapes, sizes and have different individual interests, goals and lives. Functional for one person is not always sufficient Function for another person, experiencing a different life or driven by different interests or goals.
Plan assessment are an opportunity for people to ensure their supports are appropriately meeting their lives. where there is time limited constraints on when people can apply for reassessment, a person is forced to put their lives on hold, with inappropriate support, until a beuracratic decided time.
Beuracratic systems are already widely known to cause harm and this is more of the same.
Humans have value. a beuracracy that controls without individualisation or neuance, and delinitates with limits above any human considerations, is a system that will do harm.
not contactable is a term thst should be reasonably adjusted for disability. 90 days is insufficient time to return contact for someone with complex needs, challenges of intersectionality or, someone heavily dependent on layers of support.
if the goal is curbing spending, there are numerous ways to change the NDIS to improve accountability, reduce wastage and eliminate malspending.
I do not see any real approaches to these goals.
I have significant lived experience and big picture perspectives.
I hope someone asks me for my solutions- they are less individually harmful, more accountable and individualised and, address the abuse, neglect and exploitation flagged by the Disability Royal Commission (DRC) - and still seen ongoing today.
We need to use our leadership resources to highlight the value of our human resources, including people with disabilities.
We need to address the real problems highlighted in shockingly horrifying details at the DRC.
We need to ensure that changes that are legislated do not lock people with disabilities back into limited lives of abuse and harm
Unfortunately, the proposed changes eliminate the NDIS of opportunity. Broad sweeping cuts to community access funding inpacts choice, control, independent lives and supported participation for many people with disabilities, locking them into institutional, familial or poverty based experiences of isolation and ward-ship and paternalistic monotony.
Frameworks of permanent functional impact that are coupled with reduced appeal and reassessment removes the neuanced realities of disability lives and, the human reaoities of lifecycle and real-world changing circumstances.
The NDIS needs greater individual responsiveness to be a successful scheme - not less.