Eleanor Beidatsch has a passion for palaeontology, but that’s not as strong as her passion to see more people with disability accepted and succeeding in the sciences. “When I look around a room, I don’t often see anybody else like me. In all the time I’ve been at university I’ve never seen another student in a wheelchair and I’ve seen only a couple with other sorts of disabilities. It can get lonely sometimes.”
After years of careful manoeuvring, the Coalition government is readying to make radical changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The revised system will force new assessments and tighten eligibility.
The Awards were delivered across seven categories for outstanding achievement or outcomes by disabled people, reflecting the diversity of our community, and the intersectional nature of our lives, including The Arts, Change Making, Rights Activism, Innovation, Social Impact, Inclusion, Lesley Hall Award for Lifetime Achievement. DARU would particularly like to congratulate the stars who shared … Continued
New technology is helping people living with severe disabilities to communicate and take back some control of their lives by using their thoughts and neural signs via computers. Former CNN news anchor Peter Ford, through his inspiration with Stephen Hawking and his fascination with coding, founded the company Control Bionics, giving control back to and opening up communication to hundreds of people. And they want to help more.
My GP told me to isolate a week or two before the lockdown, after the kind of conversation that I never want to have again. I was lucky: I already worked from home, and I had the financial resources to manage the increasingly expensive supplies. I knew that if I got COVID, it wouldn’t be good. My already fragile body would struggle with that extra load. I was so scared.
Globally, Australia ranks 21 out of 29 among OECD nations for the employment of people with disabilities. A recent research project by the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Business School found that the entrepreneurial spirit developed by those with disability is in part due to the failings they experienced in traditional working environments.
Sue Grier has always worried about what might happen to her autistic son when she dies, but her concerns have grown due to proposed changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
Ongoing college advocacy for GPs to be involved in the planning, implementation and unending support for their patients accessing the NDIS has been recognised by the committee, with the report recommending that the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) investigate ways in which each participant’s plan could be shared – with their consent – with their GP.
More than 4 million Australians live with a disability and they all have a story to tell. The ABC is partnering with International Day of People with Disability to tell a range of stories by and about people with disability across ABC Online, Radio, TV and iView.
Research has shown that the biggest barriers people with disabilities face are the negative and limiting attitudes held by the general community. This is something the Attitude Foundation has decided to tackle head on.
The Australian Government welcomes the COVID-19 report of the Disability Royal Commission. The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic has seen significant challenges in the way all Australians live our lives, however, the Government recognises the unique factors that need to be considered when managing the health care needs of people with disability.
“But the impact of the pandemic on many people with disability, especially those with high support needs, would have been significantly ameliorated if the Australian government had complied fully with the letter and spirit of its obligations under the [UN convention] from the very outset of the pandemic.”
The Disability Royal Commission’s issued a scathing report into how government agencies failed disabled Australians during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings point to failures by government officials to consult with people with a disability in the early stages of the pandemic and to even consider what was needed to protect them from the virus. And that left people with disability feeling anxious and stressed, and forgotten by both governments and wider
It was a “serious failure” that no Australian Government agency with responsibility for disability policy, including the Department of Health, made “any significant effort” to consult with people with disability or their representative organisations during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, a report by the Disability Royal Commission says.
In a confronting and honest story, the ABCs disability affairs reporter Nas Campanella tells how she’s been told she shouldn’t exist because of her disability. She’s sharing the story to mark the ABC’s week of coverage to mark International Day for People with Disability, designed to increase public awareness, understanding and acceptance of people with disability.