Posts by Rosemary McDonald
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Access: Some aspects of New Zealand’s…, in reply to Angela Hart,
Not all disabled children are blessed with family who are able and willing to provide the care and support needed to keep them safe and healthy and reaching their potential.
The disabled children in foster care of my acquaintance were lucky enough to be placed in care early ( before lasting damage from innappropriate care was done), with foster parents with the right skills and resources to provide the necessary support.
However...all was not made easy for these saints.
The authorities were, at times, way less than supportive...and at times openly hostile when they felt the foster parents were making unreasonable demands or setting unreasonable conditions. The only thing that stopped them dropping the children off at the CYFs office was that they loved them.
We provided much deserved respite care for some of these high needs children....but familes like ours are also few and far between. We also provided foster care for non disabled children for CYFs...and to be perfectly honest...CYFs struggled to meet the needs of those kids, never mind those children whose needs were much higher. We found CYFs very difficult to deal with...some social workers seemed to have no idea how easily affected children are to certain circumstances...
So, foster families capable and willing to commit long term to disabled children being thin on the ground and support from CYF and MOH being hard to access its no wonder that these kids end up in 'rest homes'.
We often used to discuss this topic....and decided that small but well staffed children only care homes were needed. Not huge institutions with bars on the windows, but homely (but professionally run) places where kids could be placed for the long term.
Somewhere there is a document outlining discussions with various groups on this issue and I was surprised that sworn adversaries were happy to share the table in a bid to thrash out a workable solution.
I think even the UN Monitoring Committee mentioned it.
"45. The Committee is concerned that sections 141, 142, and 144(2) of the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 appear not to give children with disabilities the same protections as other children when they are placed in out of home care."
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Access: Some aspects of New Zealand’s…, in reply to Sacha,
Well, its been a long and somewhat tortuous process beginning with the intial response from the HRC back in 2008 of " the outcome of Atkinson will apply to your situation so we wont add you to the plaintiffs", to the most recent "wait until the outcome of the Spencer appeal."
In the meantime there has (as you might imagine) been a deluge of correspondence and supporting documentation and a number of seemingly random phonecalls involving a fair amount of questions.
From what we can deduce from the information we had to provide and specific lines of questioning we are amongst the last complainants standing because
1) Peter has been through (any number of) NASC assessments and has been assessed as very high needs, and,
2) he has had no hours of funded care for over 16 years...even though he met all the eligiability requirements,
3) There are/were no MOH (as opposed to ACC) - contracted providers in our area who were able to provide carers....even if (and when) he needed them.When MOH took over disability supports they changed the rules on what contracted carers were allowed to do. The type of care required by someone with a high spinal cord injury fell outside of what they were allowed to do ... without going into gory detail.
The alternative to me being Peter's carer was residential care ... not an option.
At one stage we asked the leading ACC spinal cord injury provider if they would be willing to (if needed) provide carers for Peter. No go, as "the Ministry of Health are too difficult to work with."
So ... if the Spencer Appeal fails (and the original decision stands, which to be brief (hah!) said that those of us with an interest in the outcome of Atkinson should have been consulted in the decision to suspend the original "thou shalt not discriminate " decision from the HRRT, there might be a bid to get a bit of legal attention to our complaint.
Or it will go to the Supreme Court and we'll all be dust by the time its done.
Confused?
You bet.
To be honest, we have kind of given up on any hope of justice for us in this matter...but one day, perhaps, a little bit of the truth will out.
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I want this book.
http://www.bwb.co.nz/books/ruth-roger-and-me
Great interview with the author on Natrad this morning.
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Access: Some aspects of New Zealand’s…, in reply to Christine Peet,
Well, Christine....for the past eight years Peter (my tetraplegic partner who has chosen me as his carer) and I have been trying to figure out how so many others in our situation (disabled person and unpaid carer spouse/partner) have managed to enjoy the considerable financial advantage of being able to secure MOH:DSS funding for the disabled partner/spouses care.
When the 'rules' from day one of the Miserly's reign have been that a) NO supports (other than Carer Support Subsidy) will be put in place until "natural supports" are exhausted.
and b) under no circumstances can spouses/partners (or even ex spouses /partners) are to be paid for the care they provide.
We went out seeking others in our situation and found (to our understandable pissed offness) that rule b was completely arbitrary. Many, many spouses/partners WERE being paid as carers for their loved one. We met another one just the other day.
So....how did these couples get to enjoy such bounty?
Methinks, they simply failed to fill in the blanks on the assessment form....they lied.
Or a Contracted Provider arranged for the spouse/partner to be paid and advised the couple to avoid answering that question.
All of these arrangements must have involved some level of deceit.
Something Peter and I were not prepared to do....which is why we supported the Family Carers case, and made our own complaint to the HRC in 2008.
56 people complained to the HRC....(not the 30,000 that the MOH claimed would be demanding to be paid if they lost.)
Out of those 56 complaints to the HRC....only 3 are left as active as the new legislation will allow.( Section 70E of the PHDAct(2))
Our complaint is one of those.
Happy to clarify if this is a bit garbled!
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Access: Some aspects of New Zealand’s…, in reply to Angela Hart,
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Access: Some aspects of New Zealand’s…, in reply to Sacha,
and at a policy advocacy level, what have the main DPOs been doing for the last decade on this?
Paying lip service, and serving their paymasters.
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Access: Some aspects of New Zealand’s…, in reply to Angela Hart,
A pity (but not unusual) her marriage broke down. Makes me wonder about matrimonial property etc....perhaps a lawyer is needed to ensure that her rights regarding assets are protected? Very difficult situation, and more info needed....ie. was she still in the family home prior to the fossil factory? Has she and her ex got joint custody of the children or have her parental rights been diluted because of her disability?
Surely this is work that the MS Society should be doing....sorting this shit out?
PS...the spinal injured might be trained in pressure area prevention, but the spinal units are still having to fix em up.
My heart goes out to this woman, and how very different her situation is to the slightly older lady with advanced MS we visited the other day. Lives in a remote location with her devoted husband and fifteen hours of funded care per week plus regular visits from district nurses.
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Access: Some aspects of New Zealand’s…, in reply to Sacha,
Sacha....hear that evil cackle from the vicinity of the Swamplands?
That's moi.
Thinking of the at least 1/2 dozen other Miserly of Health: Disability Support Services clients of our acquaintance who are also living in blissfull sin with their opposite sex partner.
Guess they knew not to fess up...
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Thank you Ian....someone was talking about a person called Colin while I was typing and it slipped through the filter!
Graham McCready...."serial litigator"...is that more, or less socially acceptable than than being a serial fondler of non - consenting women's hair?
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Envirologue: What has Neoliberalism Done…, in reply to ,
I’ve seen those polyurethane houses on the side of the road. They freak me out. I would prefer to live in a concreat water tank, if I only had the two options. But my asthetic sense might be affected by years of living in boats.
Me too.
I was sent to check them out a few months ago by someone who is also working on alternatives to the 'norm' when it comes to building and materials.I (who had the idea they would be plastic smelling opaque fishtanks) was impressed.
Not smelly, not hot, and yes....they do have windows.
Most importantly they were designed for regions prone to high winds, heavy rain, flooding and earthquakes.
They are quick and easy to fabricate, cheap and easy to transport, able to be rapidly assembled on site and they are weatherproof.
The modular construction means they can be transported in sectons to difficult to access sites.
They would have made excellent emergency housing for post quake Christchurch.
P.S. The same company also makes boats.