Without reprieve

Australia is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of People with disabilities. The preamble of which clearly states:

… convinced that the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state, and that persons with disabilities and their family members should receive the necessary protections and assistance to enable families to contribute to the full and equal enjoyment of the rights of people with disabilities …

Article 16 of the Convention says in part:

… States Parties shall also take all appropriate measures to prevent all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse by ensuring inter alia, appropriate forms of gender - and age sensitive assistance and support for persons with disabilities their families and care-givers …

And again at Article 23.3:

States Parties shall ensure that children with disabilities have equal rights with respect to family life, with a view to realising their rights, and to prevent concealment, abandonment, neglect and segregation.

At the present time, there are some 55,600 people with severe or profound dependent disabilities, aged over 34 years, still living with ageing co-resident parent carers across our nation. These citizens, who are almost entirely reliant upon family, are indeed vulnerable, isolated and segregated from a society that refuses to provide them with the same or similar living choices as everyone else. Frail aged parents are still caring, long past the age when most adults make their own way in our society.

Governments claim that the needs and voice of parent-carers and families are represented by disability organisations, peak bodies and focus groups, but the truth is that many of these funded organisations have become an arm of government and actively oppose the rights of families to a voice in planning and services. They engage in activities that inform and reinforce an "ostrich" policy, sloganeering and rhetoric such as “home is good, everything else is bad”, and brand facilities as “institutions” in a blanket denial of a person’s “right to choose” from all living options available.

Many of these organisations in fact foster a mentality and objective to denigrate the valuable and important role that family carers play in society. Some are actively condemning the current federal government plan to provide 1,750 new disability accommodation beds in 175 purpose-built facilities within the next five years.

The government plan is aimed at easing the “crushing and unreasonable burden” on aged parent carers, and providing adult people with dependent disabilities with a home of their own. This response by the Federal Government is a departure from their present role in service delivery, and is a direct action taken in the face of the abject failure of the system administered by the states.

Some among these funded organisations claim the federal government is planning to “rebuild institutions” because of this proposal for 175 facilities for 1,750 persons equalling 10 bed units or clusters. These same unrepresentative groups are silent about the widespread aged care accommodation services with 30, 60 or even 100 beds, in every town and city across the nation, and which are never strangely referred to as “institutions”.

The proponents of such discrimination are the very same groups who condone the widespread practice of placing people with disabilities into privately managed, for profit, supported residential services of 20, 30 and 40 beds, where a subsistence room and meals service for younger persons with disabilities and mental illness is tolerated by eyes and voices silent and blinded by self interest.