The family of a disabled man who has spent more than four months in a Western Australian hospital waiting for supported housing has described navigating the National Disability Insurance Scheme as “heartbreaking”.
Key points:
- Mitchell Pearce has been in hospital for more than 100 days
- Disability advocates say too many NDIS patients are “stuck” in hospital
- The NDIA says it is challenging to find suitable accommodation in rural and regional areas
Mitchell Pearce, 52, has been at the Busselton Health Campus since March 29.
His sister said he had lost the will to live — a decline she said was potentially hastened by months in hospital.
Disability advocates claim more than 1,000 NDIS patients are effectively stuck in hospital because of delays in finding funding or suitable accommodation, and due to difficulties in navigating the system.
NDIS Minister Bill Shorten said yesterday he had asked the National Disability Insurance Agency to find Mr Pearce suitable accommodation “as a matter of urgency”.
Judith Pearce said her much-loved son, who is disabled after battling brain tumors as a child, had been admitted to hospital after a series of falls that meant he could no longer live at home.
While Mr Pearce was eligible for NDIS funding, the only suitable accommodation offered was in Perth or Bunbury — far away from his support network.
She said she couldn’t fault the care given in hospital, but said her son had become non-responsive and was refusing to eat or drink.
“He was quite buoyant and quite happy at the situation when he first went in,” she said.
“But I think being there for so long in this situation he has got really depressed and got down.
“Now it’s really just too late, I think for Mitchell.”
Mrs Pearce described the situation with the NDIS as heartbreaking.
“I think they have just let us go for far too long,” she said.
“I thought if perhaps we’d been there at maybe a month that something would have been resolved.”
She said the length of the stay had been devastating.
“All through all Mitchell’s illnesses, we’ve always had something to fight for. But this time, we haven’t,” she said.
‘Inhumane, inflexible’ system
Mr Peace’s sister Justine Richmond said the NDIS system was so inflexible it was inhumane.
She said her brother could not be assessed for going into a local nursing home without being “released” from the NDIS, as he was too young.
“Right back in April, when we first started having meetings about trying to find residential care for Mitchell, they acknowledged that we could go through this lengthy process, and that aged care might be the only outcome,” she said.
“But we still had to go through the process, even though this was a person who was stuck in hospital for months and months now.”
She said the NDIS needed to be able to deal more quickly with individual circumstances.
“It’s a very regimented situation… so if something doesn’t exactly fit their criteria, it doesn’t happen,” she said.
Not a unique situation
Persons with Disabilities Australia president Sam Connor said it was unacceptable disabled people were facing such long delays to be discharged from hospital because of systemic issues with the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
She referred to research from the Summer Foundation which claimed more than 1,000 NDIS participants were “stuck” in hospital in Australia, and more than 20 per cent of those faced problems getting a suitable discharge destination.
“Hospital shouldn’t be the place we go, because we haven’t got supports in place, because we haven’t got housing … no-one else has to stay in hospital because they’re effectively homeless because of the system ,” she said.
“Over the past 10 years there’s been a huge amount of red tape and bureaucracy.”
NDIS Minister Bill Shorten said the previous government’s mismanagement had resulted in a backlog of cases of NDIS patients “languishing in hospital without disability supports”.
“The Albanese Government has taken immediate action to understand the cause of delays supporting eligible NDIS participants that prevent fast and safe discharge from hospital,” he said.
“People with disability should be able to leave hospital as quickly and safely as possible, into suitable accommodation.”
In a statement, a spokesman for the National Disability Insurance Agency said the organization “recognizes the exceptionally difficult health challenges facing Mitchell and his family.”
“The NDIA acknowledges that finding suitable disability housing, especially in regional and remote areas, can be challenging,” it stated.
A senior officer has now been appointed to help in the case.
Mrs Pearce said the NDIS had to change and bureaucrats needed to listen.
“I would just like to think that this wouldn’t happen to other families,” she said.
“This is why we are speaking out on behalf of Mitchell, we just hope this doesn’t happen to them because it is heartbreaking.”
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