It’s taken Kerry Stratton 12 months to get the right care package for her severely disabled son under the NDIS – but soon she’s got to go through the whole rigmarole again.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Wombarra woman said the National Disability Insurance Scheme, while good in theory, was overly bureaucratic and extremely difficult to navigate.
She spends countless hours each week filling out forms, attending meetings and making phone calls to ensure her 37-year-old son, Matthew, has the high-level support he needs.
“Matthew is severely disabled – he has autism, is partially deaf, non-verbal and epileptic with severe intellectual disabilities,” she said.
“At the same time he is the joy of this family’s life; he loves outdoor activities, he plays basketball through The Disability Trust, he enjoys a day program at Greenacres and leads a very full and happy life.
“Yet in the initial plan we received under the NDIS, I didn’t recognise my son – there was no funding for speech and occasional therapy and his day program hours had been cut.
“A review didn’t help, so we went through the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to finally get the plan altered to suit his needs.
“But as the plan needs to be reviewed every year – despite the fact that Matthew’s disability won’t change – I’ll soon have to go through the entire process again.”
Ms Stratton said she’d heard similar stories from many other Illawarra families, who were frustrated that the scheme’s “teething problems” were not being fixed.
“It’s a system that’s in urgent need of repair,” she said. “It features an inadequate IT system, administered by a poorly trained workforce, which is placing pressure on families – and the service providers that work hard to assist them.”
Services like Greenacres Disability Services which, according to its CEO Chris Christodoulou, has had to fork out an extra $400,000 a year in administration costs since the roll-out of the NDIS.
“Many people with disabilities are not receiving the level of support they’d expect under the NDIS and are having to challenge their plans, so the system below the surface is in a bit of turmoil,” Mr Christodoulou said.
“Many providers are feeling the pinch as the government’s pricing model doesn’t cover the cost of providing many of the services, which has caused some smaller operators to close and others to review the services they are able to offer.
“Meantime the additional administrative costs required for the system are placing further pressure on providers.”
On Monday, Social Services Minister Paul Fletcher announced that the NDIS had reached a milestone, with more than 250,000 people accessing the scheme.
“Reaching this milestone means that a quarter of million Australians with a disability are now being empowered to live their best life and achieve their goals,” he said.
However the peak body for providers, National Disability Services, said the government had not addressed the continuing and significant problems.
“Providers of services under the NDIS are telling us it’s really tough going, and as more people enter the scheme we will see the problems grow,” NDS CEO Chris Tanti said.
“Some NDIS prices remain too low and unless changed we expect to see disability service providers exiting part of the market.
“Market failure is not good for anyone, and it will ultimately hurt the people we are all here to serve.”