Posts by Rosemary McDonald
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"We know that the rest of the country is totally over hearing about Christchurch."
No. No. No. No. No.
Spent time with an eighty year old with a daughter in Christchurch today.
This gentle gentleman was enraged that their home is only just now on the way to getting sorted.
Gerry Brownlee, the government representative....the devil incarnate. In this gentle gentleman's opinion.
This is NOT the New Zealand I want to live in.
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Our Leader excels at the CCS 80th birthday celebration in Hamilton today....bugger...was at a funeral so missed him.
BUT...he clearly has the handle on the whole disability advocacy thing....
"I know from being in the National party that if you don't re-invent yourself, if you're not constantly challenging yourself to [fit] a modern New Zealand then you don't last and this is true for an organisation like yours as it is for the National party."
Never let a chance go by, John, never let a chance go by....
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Mary Doria Russell....three times through and still rocks the core.
Joanna "How to Suppress Women's Writing" Russ, Named my daughter after one of her heroines.
And for hardcore scare your pants off detective/horror....anything by Mo Hayder.
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Poole would argue that the parents chose to send their son to his school....
Having team whaleblog on his side...what a champ!
What concerns me is the hours of ORRS funding that went astray....
The 'media beef up' line was also used by the New Zealand Disability Support Network after the same journalist( and others) exposed cases of serious neglect and abuse at the hands of MOH care providers.
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Paul Gibson trying to undo some of the wickedness.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/279402/call-for-inquiry-into-family-caregiver-pay
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Access: Disability as a wicked policy problem, in reply to Tom Adson,
Further the focus of the blogs I read seem to be on the physically disabled, where as mine are on the mentally disabled.
Theoretically, it should be easier to quantify the types of supports required for those with a physical disability...personal care, mobility equipment, access to transport and the built environment.
Those with mental disability...and this is a very diverse group...and arguably the most vulnerable...much harder to measure the types of support needed.
BUT...not impossible. AND....there has been some very good initiatives run by some very good people.
Have you read through Hilary's series of posts...http://publicaddress.net/access/some-aspects-of-new-zealands-disability-history/
there are four parts in total...and a very good pocket history of the paths taken by those with (largely) intellectual/mental disability and autism.
I hear what you are saying about Kiwis accepting that proper care and support is a worthwhile taxpayer expense....and I agree.
Trouble is...and I am a deep down dyed in the wool, hardened in the trenches cynic...there is a hard wired attitude from government and bureaucrats that people with disabilities and their families do not know what is best for them.
There is an assumption that all disabled people and their families are out to rort the system...and they use that as an excuse to make all supports as difficult to access as possible.
Then they say..."we have to be accountable to the taxpayer".
In the meantime....MOH:DSS spends over a billion dollars per year on disability supports...most of which goes through the accounts of various contracted providers and NGOs...who are seldom if ever held to account.
In the meantime there a lots and lots of disabled people and their families who, despite the happy clappy messages we get from the Minister for Disability Issues, are doing it really hard.
Well...there are questions being asked now...and talk about 'client directed budgets' see....http://www.productivity.govt.nz/inquiry-content/2032?stage=3, and maybe read some of the submissions from the NGOs and contracted providers.
You are clearly a professional....I'd be interested to see what you pick up from some of those submissions, what messages lie between the lines.
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Access: Disability as a wicked policy problem, in reply to Sacha,
The gap exists because successive governments have allowed it to.
Allowed?
I would say encouraged.
Divide and conquer.
When was the last time you heard an ACC client (and I'm thinking of a couple who seem to pop up on this or that board) demand that the Government address the disparity between the two groups?
I was thrown of the NZSpinal Trust Facebook page for calling the Ministry of Health the "Miserly" and getting into a conversation with another non ACC person about the shit deal the MOH folk have.
We were phoned, at home, by someone from the Trust and told there would be no criticism of the Misery on their page...."because we need the funding we get from MOH'.
Now hang on a minute. They are supposed to advocate for those with spinal injuries...ALL people with spinal impairment...or why were they getting mucho $$$ from MOH.
Successive governments have effectively bought the so called advocates....and these paid by the government advocacy groups are the only one's who can get access to the ministers...or the media.
I dream of a day when those in positions of privilege in the disability community can come down off their lofty perches and stand along side the rest of us.
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Access: Disability as a wicked policy problem, in reply to Angela Hart,
Corrections can bury a major problem for 18 months, but they can’t hold a candle to the MOH.
Damn right....the Misery of Health are in a class all of their own.
Needs assessments through the NASCs are, and always have been unbearably odious and based on the premise of only assessing for 'unmet' needs and the insistence that the client exploit all their 'natural resources" before any paid supports are put in place.
Well...the concept of 'natural supports' was discussed at some length and depth by the HRRT in Atkinson et al. The Tribunal suggested that there should be a test of "reasonableness" to acertain the level of support resident family should be expected to provide.
I suspect the Tribunal assumed the Miserly of Health understood the concept of "reasonableness".
There is another protocol for assessment of support needs in operation in NZ...also time consuming and "probing"...but almost inevitably results in a considerably higher allocation of hours of funded care.
For two groups of impairments...cerebral palsy and spinal cord impairment...where some are ACC and some are MoH. The ACC clients are allocated a shit load more hours of care than a MOH client with exactly the same level of impairment.
And YET....the 2008 joint MOH/ACC Home and Community Support Services document....http://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/hcss-implementation-guide-mar09.pdf...
seems to suggest that the two groups should be treated the same....more or less.
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Speaker: Jim's Festival, in reply to Russell Brown,
Good lord, the young man’s a machine.
Good lord, the young man is good.
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Access: Disability as a wicked policy problem, in reply to Sacha,
Enough, please, Sacha.
For Hilary's sake, I did watch the first 2 minutes on the Young People's telly...just to see if 'funded family care' got a mention.
Spent the last 20 minutes scrubbing my eyeballs and syringing my ears.