Thank fuck we don’t care about intellectually disabled young people

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It’s been a fortnight now since the horror revelations of Parklands in Pukekawa, south of Auckland. The terrible level of care meted out to disabled people didn’t feature much in any major news source, which gives an insight into the lack of real change in this sector.

There is no community care for the intellectually disabled because the community doesn’t care.

The deregulation of the poorly funded public mental health system that created the nightmare scenarios of abuse that sparked the calls for change, has become a poorly funded private contractor system that hints at a world of mistreatment hidden in a shadow that never comes to light.

When it does, it’s ignored. Parents and caregivers were making complaints a decade ago about Parklands and yet the need to shuffle papers and dump people into the cheapest cost accommodation possible has breed a culture of Ministry denial backed up by the public’s discomfort of thinking about what such an under resourced system must do to all those it hurts.

Just as we struggle to comprehend these findings from Parklands…

– Parklands was dirty, cramped and cold, with 35-plus dogs on the property.

– Staff watched residents on a surveillance camera rather than interacting with them.

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– Residents rarely left Parklands, one man was confined for nine weeks, and medicine was badly handled and recorded.

– Residents were not given regular health checks, staff rarely bought fresh fruit or meat, and funding lacked transparency.

– Only $2000 was spent each month on food for 19 people, and residents’ birthdays were not celebrated.

– Some clients were forced to share rooms.

– At times they resorted to hiding under the covers of their beds to get privacy.

– A young man with cerebral palsy was “told off” for reporting to ministry staff that his emergency call bell was broken.

– A resident was allegedly punched in the face by a staff member while they were trying to “de-escalate” his behaviour.

…we read of yet another case of abuse by those charged with caring for these vulnerable New Zealanders…

‘Nightmare’ battle over abused son
A few months after a Nelson couple put their son in fulltime care he would come home and sit sobbing on his couch.

“He would just sit there and the tears would be rolling down his face,” his father said.

The boy, who was 15 at the time in 2009, also started displaying other new and extreme behaviour.

Strong and solidly built, he would come into a room and “just attack” his father who had to use all his strength to subdue him.

The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has Down syndrome, is severely autistic and cannot speak. He requires round-the-clock supervision by two caregivers and has been described as one of the most cared for individuals in New Zealand.

He had been violent and unpredictable before, but this was new behaviour, his parents said.

His parents struggled to understand what was going on, but believe their son’s treatment at the Disability Support Services’ (DSS) house set up for him in Nelson was behind his huge mood shift.

This month, Linda Pearl Ericson, 62, the team leader in charge of that house was found guilty of three counts of assaulting their son.

…no where is the contempt for the weakness these NZers find themselves in articulated better than in the Government’s decision to ram the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill through to deny those who try and help their children by directly caring for them with any shred of dignity.

To ram this legislation through minus public debate while censoring the official advice is cruelty as social policy.

To use the power of the state to abuse the weak because the tyranny of the majority don’t care about mental health or physical disability are the actions of a cowardly Government with all the social conscience of slavers.

To ram through law that benefits National’s rich mates is one thing, but to watch them do it to those who deserve all the empathy society can muster just because they know as a community we tend to turn an awkward blind eye to this sector is an affront to the very nature of our humanity while damning us by its cynical judgement as well.

The rich get richer and the poor suffer. This is New Zealand under a multi-millionare in 2013. This won’t be debated on Seven Sharp tonight.

2 COMMENTS

  1. No wonder mental health is so far down the list – people can hardly handle the physically disabled. And quite frankly being disabled in this country sucks – a daily grind of below poverty income, lacking medical support, and dog help you – if you question a bloody doctor. What is worse is, if it is an invisible disability – then your buggered.

  2. These are the mental health cases of a more serious nature, and when this kind of stuff happens, do not even dare to look at the neglect that happens to the many thousands, yes tens of thousands of not so obvious, yet serious, and certainly the more “moderate” mental health cases in NZ’s society, who almost exclusively live left alone in the wider communities. I have seen a fair few live in despair, hopelessness and squalor.

    Services available may have improved a bit over the years in the years the last Labour government was running health, and more spending was made available also for addiction services.

    What I have learned is, that since National took over the helm, various services have faced caps and cutbacks. We get these nice headlines about more being spent on youth mental health, but much of the propaganda coming from Ryall and his servants is based on robbing Peter to pay Paul (re-structuring and re-allocation of limited resources)!

    Services are totally unable to meet demand, to deliver truly 1st World standard care and support. So it is endless medicating my doctors and psychiatrists and hoping it all stays calm, in most cases.

    Yet we hear and see the break downs in the news headlines repeatedly, where people crack up and go and create mayhem or self harm.

    Now just imagine, what it will be like when many of those will be denied benefit support under the new regime to start in a month and a half. They will face pressure to get jobs, while not getting proper support, as the budget has not really shown any spend towards this.

    Prepare for an explosion of newsworthy scandals, crisis, and people breaking down – or creating harm to self and others. I am really afraid, because these ideologists are going to cause endless harm.

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