On any night there’s an estimated 116,000 homeless people in Australia and the majority of them have a disability. “Having nowhere to go after hospitalisation … that’s one of the difficulties I faced,” she said. “You just feel nothing, you’ve got nowhere to go, you don’t really have the ability or the finance to feel anything, so it’s nothingness.
A mother resorted to rummaging through a rubbish tip to find spare parts for her daughter’s wheelchair, the disability royal commission was told this week. The First Nations woman was among many in remote communities who spoke of trying to navigate a system with no “cultural competence”.
The head of the First Persons Disability Network, Damian Griffis, said Indigenous people with a disability should be supported to stay in their own communities. He advocated providing training to people in the community, rather than fly-in, fly-out health-care models, because it would be more beneficial and cost-effective.
The market-based model relies on funding for disabled people’s care driving the growth of service provision, Northern Territory Public Guardian Beth Walker told the disability inquiry on Tuesday. “The market has not responded and so people’s needs are not being fully met because of the lack of availability of services,” she said at the hearing in Alice Springs on Tuesday.
Among the witnesses was a Warumungu woman, Daisy*, whose three children include 18-year-old Joziah, who lives with quadriplegia and dysphagia. While Daisy lives in Tennant Creek, Joziah now lives 500km away in Alice Springs, because he was unable to access the support he needed – such as speech therapy and physiotherapy – in the family’s home town.
The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability has turned its attention to the treatment and experiences of thousands of Indigenous people with disabilities in remote communities.
But Ms Sayers argues separating students into mainstream and special schools is “a form of segregation”, as defined by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. “We need to be transforming our education system so that all students are included alongside their non-disabled peers in education,” she said.
Testimony to the disability royal commission this week described a culture in which people were “seen as a dollar figure” and in which management and staff did not report serious incidents.
Proud Indigenous man Thomas Marks tells his story of being Stolen Gen, incarceration and turning his life around through art. This is his story told in his own words for the Disability Royal Commission.
The family of a young disabled man abused by a carer has never received an apology or compensation from the service provider, a royal commission has been told.
The woman, known as Chloe, gave evidence to the disability royal commission that she was repeatedly raped by the man, and later fell pregnant. She told the DRC she “nearly died” and lost her baby in one of the attacks in 2016.
A barista course aimed at people with disability that allegedly lacked basic equipment and had no specific training manuals was established using a $300,000 federal government grant, an inquiry has heard.
Life Without Barriers chief executive Claire Robbs began her evidence by publicly apologising to the resident – known by the pseudonym Sophie – but said she did not escalate the incident to board level as it did not occur while in the organisation’s care.
One of Australia’s largest national disability insurance scheme providers has apologised to the residents of two troubled group homes after allegations of violence, abuse and neglect were aired at an inquiry. Life Without Barriers charged residents at a Victoria home a substantial proportion of their disability pension for “rent” despite the property being leased on a peppercorn deal of $1 a month.
A woman with cerebral palsy was sexually assaulted in a public park after her disability accommodation provider refused to let her meet her date in her own home, the disability royal commission has heard.