The disability royal commission will resume next month as it works towards delivering its first major report in October. The next public hearings will be in western Sydney, looking at allegations people with cognitive disabilities are dying because of poor health care. It comes after a rocky start for the commission, with some advocates critical of the lack of disability voices in its opening phase.
Disability and Community Inclusion professor Sally Robinson told the inquiry residents in group homes were being treated in ways that would not be acceptable for other people. “Residents are expected to be compliant, they’re expected to not know very much about their right to complain … They’re expected to endure it,” she told the commission.
Dr Spivakovsky questioned the lack of public outrage over the use of what many researchers and activists call “disability-specific lawful violence”.
“I have found the move into supported accommodation resulted in extreme loss of control of my life,” Dr Gibilisco told the disability royal commission on Monday. “I have found it to be a loss to my way of life in a personal and social sense.”
The lawful but “barbaric” use of chemical and mechanical restraints on people with disability should spark public outrage, but instead their use is widely overlooked, a royal commission hearing has been told.
It’s important that as a nation we acknowledge the many lives that have been impacted by these terrible stories and do all we can to ensure they don’t happen again. One way of doing this is by taking a step back and asking why we have needed three royal commissions into vulnerable people in our society in such quick succession.
An Adelaide mother has told the disability royal commission her son suffered severe injuries and was made to live in filth while in residential care.
Disability Royal Commission hearings sometimes use terms that most Australians aren’t very familiar with. The ‘Jargon Buster’ is a list of these explained in plain language.
“When you say you’re going to have a royal commission that’s going to have disabled people at the heart of it and then you don’t have a single disabled person whose giving evidence, that’s incredibly problematic,” advocate Samantha Connor said.
Some students with disability have been denied bathroom breaks and forced to sit in their own urine, while others have been forcefully dragged by their teachers, the disability royal commission has heard.
Some teachers are “resisting diversity” in their classrooms and failing to cater for disabled students, the disability royal commission has been told. Special education teachers say despite some students having “complex needs”, there is no reason they cannot attend and thrive in mainstream schools.
The disability royal commission in Townsville has been told while there are amazing teachers many don’t want children with disabilities in their classrooms.
Counsel assisting Kerri Mellifont said some disabled students are subject to violence and bullying so severe they are forced to withdraw from the mainstream school system. “Those submissions and information start to paint the very real and stark picture that in many places persons with disabilities are not receiving equity in their education,” Dr Mellifont said.
A “substantial number” of the largest NDIS providers are being ordered to provide information relating to complaints, investigations and reported incidents of violence and abuse.
BRISBANE barrister Rebecca Treston QC has delivered a shocking snapshot of abuse, neglect and disadvantage suffered by disabled people living in Australia today. “Every 10 minutes someone with profound or severe disability experiences physical or sexual violence,” Ms Treston, told the opening session of a new royal commission.