A COAG to remember

The states appear to be coming to the table.  Recent reports suggest that they are vying over launch sites, with some states offering to set aside funds, and others arguing that the Commonwealth should pay the entirety.

The deliberations in this area are critical; the only possible way for this scheme to work is with commitment from all levels of government. 

Meanwhile, the people most affected sit and wait.

Mark Zangari is the CEO of a software company. In February this year he was paralysed by a spinal haemorrhage that came out of nowhere.  No warning, no risk factors, no illness.  It just happened.

He was incredibly lucky.  A successful surgery and a short course of physiotherapy later he is back to normal.  Except that “normal” has changed for him.

“Intellectually I know that over time the feeling of what happened will wear off” he says. But it hasn’t yet. “Even now there is an alternate self following me everywhere I go, into the kitchen, at the airport, overseas, it is there, this “other Mark”, asking me every step of the way how I would manage if I was paraplegic like the doctors expected.”

The short answer is he would not.  “I have lived this ‘alternate self’ for months now.  And I know, I feel, I accept, that I could not be the person I am if I were paralysed. The long haul business trips, flying from country to country, back to back meetings, being wherever a client needs me to be.  I simply couldn’t do it, no matter how hard I tried.  I would have become a different person. I am sure of this.”

For many people with a disability the “alternate self” is not a self without a disability, but a self with appropriate support.  A self where wheelchairs are provided as needed, where therapy occurs in time to facilitate ongoing education, where personal support workers are provided so that a hospitalisation does not become the trigger for unemployment and social isolation. 

The potential life, achievements, friendships, career, and family of that alternate self are drifting further and further away with every day of inaction.  The gap between the potential of the individual and the reality of a system that excludes and disables at some point becomes irreversible. 

At some point the opportunity is lost to restore function, enhance ability, maintain hope.  For some Australians, this is already the case.  We have a moral obligation to ensure we do everything we can as a nation not to increase that number.

COAG has significant and important work to carry out today.