Kelly Vincent – Radio Adelaide Interview on the Centre for Disability Health
12/11/2015
On 12th November 2015, Dignity for Disability MLC Kelly Vincent was interviewed on Radio Adelaide to discuss the proposed closure of the Centre for Disability Health and the concerns that have been raised by consumers of the Centre. Here is the transcript from the interview.
Newton: The State Government is planning to close the Centre for Disability Health on the grounds that the NDIS will provide adequate state healthcare. The centre provides specialist healthcare for all types of disability including people who are only able to communicate through their behaviour. Kelly Vincent, why is the State Government planning on closing the Centre for Disability Health?
Kelly Vincent: Current consumers of the Centre for Disability Health and their families have received a letter which basically says that because the National Disability Insurance Scheme is coming in, that’s going to change the way that disability services are provided. They’re looking to reform and change the state’s role in services to people with disabilities. The interesting thing about this is if you talk to the departments responsible for running the NDIS they will tell you that the scheme is not set up and they’re not interested in funding things that don’t relate directly to disabilities. So they’re not interested in funding things like health and education for example. So it’s very interesting and very concerning that the State Government is trying to use a scheme which is not set up and not designed to provide healthcare to shirk its obligations to funding for providing healthcare itself.
Newton: It’s rather difficult to understand either governments’ direction, the State Government have given the reason that the NDIS will replace it and yet they’re not prepared to fund it, and it seems quite an important part of the ability for people to live their life to have these specialist disability health services.
Kelly Vincent: Look, it is an absolutely essential service many of the people attending the Centre for Disability Health as patients have disabilities which mean they’re not able to communicate verbally. Often the only way that they can demonstrate that they’re in pain is through changes in their behaviour, which might be behaviour that is interpreted as violent or aggressive and can pose a real or perceived threat to the people around them. Without the Centre for Disability Health and the expertise the staff there have, often what will happen to people with these types of disabilities is that they’ll be taken to a GP with no specialist knowledge and also no time to slowly go through things with someone who may not be able to communicate quickly. As a result the person is often only given sedative medication to treat the behaviour rather than treating the underlying cause. So what the Centre for Disability Health does is actually not only meet the holistic health needs of people with disabilities, but also respect and respond to our human rights not to be sedated and to be treated holistically as well.
Newton: Many doctors would not have the time to be able to understand a person who was only able to communicate through their behaviour, so how would the healthcare system deal with it if this centre wasn’t in existence?
Kelly Vincent: Well, this is what we’re interested to know, because that letter says that current staff of the centre have been told to transition their current stations to other services, but if you speak to both consumers of the service and the medical professionals working there they will tell you that while there is no increased training of general practitioners in the mainstream health service there is nowhere for these people to transition to. So we’re very concerned in Dignity for Disability that we’ll see going back to an increased prevalence of the bad old days where people with disabilities were simply sedated, left untreated and had their human right to adequate healthcare denied.
Newton: If the NDIS isn’t prepared to fund the Centre for Disability Health, how do they propose to fund the disability services in the healthcare system? You were saying that they were just prepared to fund direct disability services, so how do they see not funding the Centre for Disability Health, how would they replace that service?
Kelly Vincent: Well, I think that’s the question because everywhere we turn we’re being told that this is the responsibility of the NDIS. The NDIS is not set up to fund healthcare services. You talk to the Minister for Disabilities, Tony Piccolo, and he’ll tell you this is a concern for the Health Minister even though his department currently fund it, the Department for Communities and Social Inclusion, and the Health Minister will tell you that this is Disabilities’ concern. So Dignity for Disability is very concerned about the lack of clarity around who will fund these services in the future. We would like to see a move towards mainstream services being able to cater for people with disabilities as citizens of South Australia and Australia having the right to the same healthcare services as anyone else. But as I said, at the moment there is not the knowledge, the understanding within the mainstream healthcare service to take the time to communicate with people and to look at people holistically and to treat the underlying causes of their concerning behaviour. So at the moment I hope we’ll move to a stage where mainstream services can properly cater to all people with disabilities, but at the moment we cannot afford to lose the Centre for Disability Health. That’s why I’ve started our petition, petitioning both the Minister for Disability and the Minister for Health to not close this centre. I started this petition just yesterday afternoon. We’ve already gained over 100 signatures. I’d encourage anyone listening to join us in signing that petition as well. At the moment we just can’t afford to lose the Centre for Disability Health.
Newton: You took part in a media conference yesterday and there were a number of different speakers at the conference. Can you tell our listeners about some of the people affected and their stories?
Kelly Vincent: Some of the speakers were people who are medical professionals who’ve worked in disability and health and most currently in the Centre for Disability Health itself. I think most importantly these people are also as well as being medical professionals, parents of consumers of the service, some of whom may not have even been diagnosed with their disability were it not for the expertise of the Centre for Disability Health, many of whom would not be able to access adequate healthcare without the centre. General practitioners generally speaking don’t have the expertise as well as the time in a regular length GP appointment to go through some of the issues that maybe causing concerning behaviour, distressing behaviour. We heard stories of people who otherwise would not be able to access healthcare at all and who may go untreated for months or perhaps even longer at a time for issues such as a reflux issue that’s causing pain, a migraine, dental pain as well as mental health issues like anxiety and depression.
Newton: What is the proposed timetable to actually close the centre?
Kelly Vincent: I understand that current consumers of the centre and their families have been given two weeks to provide feedback on the closure for the centre. Now, two weeks isn’t very much time for anyone to provide feedback, but this is particularly not enough time for people with complex communication needs who may need a lot of assistance to put forward a written submission or to give a verbal submission given that they communicate in ways other than speaking. So it’s absolutely outrageous that the Government is clearly not genuinely interested and genuinely consulting with people given that they don’t seem to be interested in catering to the very people that they purport to be interested in hearing from, that is people with disabilities who use the service who have complex communication needs which mean that two weeks’ time to provide feedback is not going to be enough for many of them.
Newton: So the Government really needs to put a stop to it, is that what you’re proposing, until something else is negotiated and put in place and actually has the services available within it?
Kelly Vincent: Absolutely and that’s why I’ve started a change.org petition petitioning both the Ministers for Disability and Health to save this vital centre. We may well in the future move towards mainstream services in health being more accessible and responsive and respectful of the needs of people with disabilities, but at the moment that is flatly not the case and there is nowhere for them to transition to. So at the moment we cannot afford to lose this vital service and we’re very concerned that this will lead to an increase in people with disabilities going to GP appointments with concerning and distressing behaviours having the GP assume that every behaviour is linked to the disability itself and not investigating the underlying cause. So this could well see more and more people being sedated rather than having the underlying cause of their behaviour treated from a holistic healthcare perspective as well as a human rights perspective that is not acceptable. At the moment we cannot afford to lose the Centre for Disability Health which is able to holistically respond to healthcare needs and therefore the human rights of people with disabilities.
Newton: I wish you the best of luck in that. Thank you very much.
