Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Fighting Chance blog 13

The NDIS: Why can’t beggars be choosers? It’s my life not yours!


Today I’m reviewing several articles of differing opinion regarding the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), but I’ll try my very best to balance it out.

First to step into the arena was disability advocate and Ramp up writer Stella Young, then two journalists Claire Porter and Matt Young weighed in on the case with very different opinions.

Stella Young wrote an article speaking about the importance of implementing the NDIS she made particular reference to the fact that the maximum current funding for wheelchairs in Victoria is $8000. Her new wheelchair, which she bought to replace her 17 year-old wheelchair, and is not a particularly fancy version set her back $22000, which leads me to question how many people would have a spare $14000 lying around to be spent if their sole mobility aid were to be irreparably broken on any given day.

Stella reached out to then Prime Minister Julia Gillard asking her to negotiate using the Medicare levy to somehow help pay for the NDIS as she feels the question is not why we are implementing this now, it is why haven’t we done it sooner?

Although former Prime Minister Julia Gillard happily agreed to work towards getting funding for the NDIS, the question that still hereby remains is whether or not the money which has been designated for the NDIS is then going to be spent wisely.
 Claire encourages people to think more precisely and start being more financially self-sufficient with our spending habits in order to help the needy out enough as much as possible, whereas Matt is hereby cautious about it and has his valid reasons as to why, I feel that he’s comparing to the baby bonus scheme and/or living on welfare and wouldn’t want perfectly well-off families to take advantage of the system and/or exploit its purpose.
Matt also understands that lots of advertising tools went into running and making this campaign a reality, but feels that the government is putting too much pressure on members of the public to sympathise with and/or “blindly” donate as much as possible even if it entails them to sometimes or always go beyond their means to do so.
Now from where I stand, I can understand Matt’s reservation and disagree with the way that the government has turned this into a pity party. Besides this, I feel that the government should’ve put this in place a lot earlier because I know of people who’ve had to go on waiting lists and/or enlisted the help of outside facilities to gain desperately needed mobility equipment, for even up to 2 years in some cases. Imagine how it would feel to be a non-verbal person socially having to deal the pressures of everyday life without a communication device, and getting frequently frustrated as a result of being misunderstood and/or misheard.
My overall notion of the reason as to why the NDIS was put in place to begin with is, to help assist people with disabilities with monetary grants and/or mobility equipment to help ensure that they have a further capacity to improve their quality of life and/or independence.

I feel that this scheme should especially focus on those who live independently from their parents because, some people’s personal health and hygiene are sometimes suffering because of a lack of funding which is unfair to anyone, let alone someone with a disability. Lillian Andren disclosed in the productivity commission hearing that as a person with daily incontinence issues, she’s then entitled to three showers a week compared to a continent person who is entitled to two showers a week. Which begs the question, why is it okay to sit in one’s own filth for 4/7 days, but not 5/7, is 4/7 not still a majority? Isn’t 1/7 already too much?
So, conclusively on that note I’d now like to challenge Matt and propose that he meet with just one person whom this scheme would benefit, and see whether or not he as a result, has a change of heart towards this issue.
More to come, as the revelations continue…!
You’re welcome to formulate your own opinion from these links:

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