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Australia

WA NDIS participant Mitchell Pearce dies in Busselton hospital waiting for disability accommodation

A composite photo of a man sitting in hospital

The family of a disabled man who died after spending more than four months in hospital waiting for accommodation have described the National Disability Insurance Scheme and aged care system in Australia as “broken”.

Mitchell Pearce, 52, died on Saturday in hospice care, little more than a day after NDIS Minister Bill Shorten ordered the agency to find him appropriate accommodation as a “matter of urgency.”

His sister Justine Richmond said her brother died peacefully surrounded by people who loved him.

Mr Pearce had been in Busselton Hospital since March 29.

His family said Mr Pearce, who was disabled since suffering brain tumors as a child, had lost the will to live in hospital, and refused to eat or drink.

Vow to keep fighting

While it was too late for her brother, Mrs Richmond urged people to keep speaking up for change.

Two women stand in a home garden looking at a camera
Mr Pearce’s sister Mrs Richmond, left, and mother Judith Pearce want people to speak up and bring about structural change to the NDIS.(ABC South West: Georgia Loney)

She said since the family’s story came out on Friday she had been inundated with people wanting to share their experiences.

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Australia

SA government to use former aged care home to help transition NDIS patients out of hospital

A tram in front of a white hospital building with green and yellow trees

A former aged care home will be used to transition NDIS patients who no longer need acute medical care out of hospital in a bid to free up capacity across South Australia’s overwhelmed health system.

The state’s hospitals continue to face unprecedented pressure, with 341 patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19, including 11 who are in intensive care.

There have also been 984 people hospitalized with the flu this year.

The new 24-bed community care facility will open next week at the former site of Uniting SA’s Regency Green aged care home.

Health Minister Chris Picton said the new facility would provide transitional care to NDIS patients with a psychosocial disability while they received mental health support.

“It’s going to give a much more peaceful and calming environment for them, the appropriate care that’s going to be provided by CLO (Community Living Options) but also making sure we are freeing up those beds,” he said.

A woman wearing a purple blazer and purple lipstick with a serious expression
SA’s Human Services Minister Nat Cook says some NDIS patients have been waiting in hospital for over a year. (abcnews)

There are currently 127 patients in public hospital beds who are eligible for NDIS support services and ready to be discharged.

“These are people who it has been difficult to find elsewhere because they do need appropriate supports,” Mr Picton said.

“These are people who have NDIS clearance, are medically cleared to be discharged from hospital but there simply aren’t places for them to go.”

The facility will cost $1.2 million to open and will initially only take patients from Central Adelaide Local Health Network (CALHN).

It will be run by CLO in partnership with Wellbeing SA, Uniting SA, CALHN and the Office of the Chief Psychiatrist.

Human Services Minister Nat Cook said for some NDIS patients, hospital could worsen conditions and escalate behaviours.

“These people, some of them have remained in hospital not just for weeks and months but for over a year,” she said.

“They have been stuck in other step-down facilities as well without pathways or coordinated journeys for discharge to home.”

A woman with short brown hair wearing a beige scarf and a black top
COVID acute commander Lesley Dwyer says 230 patients have been moved out of hospital and into aged care facilities. (abcnews)

Acute System Response COVID Commander Lesley Dwyer said in the last few weeks, 57 NDIS patients had been discharged into more appropriate accommodation.

“Accommodation that is much more home-like gives people a chance to really experience independence that they probably haven’t had while they have been in the acute system,” she said.

“In addition to that, we have also discharged 230 people into aged care beds.”

The latest data from the SA Ambulance Service shows ambulances spent 3,647 hours ramped outside hospitals during July.

The previous month, SA recorded its worst ramping times on record with 3,838 hours lost waiting for beds to become available.

The state recorded 2,421 new cases of COVID-19 today and eight deaths of patients ranging in age from their 60s to 90s.

There are currently 17,647 active cases in the state.

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Categories
Australia

Yeppoon dad Dan Rutledge in coma in Brisbane hospital after stroke following brain surgery

A man lies in a hospital bed.

Choking back tears, Leisa Rutledge struggles as she details the past month with her husband Dan in intensive care in Brisbane.

Ms Rutledge, who usually lives in Yeppoon in central Queensland, pushed for her husband to see a doctor after what seemed like a harmless sinus issue made his snoring worse.

But a scan and a follow-up phone call from a Brisbane neurosurgeon changed everything.

“[The doctor] he said it was quite big… the [brain] tumor was connected to a major blood vessel,” Ms Rutledge said.

“He said I think it’s really important that you have the surgery because if you don’t, you probably won’t be around for Christmas.”

Mr Rutledge suffered a stroke in his brain stem after the surgery in early July and has been in a coma since.

Ms Rutledge said the experience of nearly losing her high school sweetheart had been heartbreaking.

“That was a really hard day,” she said.

Accommodation struggle

A woman and men stand together smiling, they are dressed up
Mr and Mrs Rutledge have been together since high school.(Supplied: Leisa Rutledge)

Ms Rutledge said she had not previously thought about what living in Yeppoon would mean for her family if someone needed care that was not available locally.

“I don’t know how people can afford to be in our situation,” she said.

Ms Rutledge said a doctor told her to think long term about her family’s future, as her husband could be in a coma for months and any rehabilitation would be intense, take considerable time, and would need to happen in Brisbane.

It’s put the mother-of-three in a difficult position.

“That kind of shocked me because I don’t want to give up our home in Yeppoon, because if Dan does get to a point where he gets home, I want him to remember what we had,” she said.

Queensland Health offers a patient subsidy scheme to help people from rural and regional areas to access healthcare more than 50 kilometers away.

While Ms Rutledge has access to the subsidy scheme, she said the money it provided for rent did not cover the cost of renting for the family in Brisbane near the hospital.

They are currently living with her sister, about a 50-minute drive from the hospital, while an online fundraiser has been set up to help pay the family’s costs.

A woman, man, teenage boy and two girls dressed up
The Rutledges have three teenage children who are completing school work online.(Supplied: Leisa Rutledge)

Queensland Health said in a statement that distance, geographical implications, and isolation were important considerations when managing healthcare services in hospitals.

“We acknowledge additional costs Queenslanders living in rural and remote locations incur when accessing specialty health services,” it said.

The department added that $97.20 million was allocated to the subsidy scheme in the 2021-22 financial year.

Ms Rutledge said she was looking for an apartment, but with the tight rental market, her situation felt “really dire”.

While Mr Rutledge’s hospital does have social workers to help place families in homes, she said the only option available was a studio apartment and her family needed more space long term.

She said she was on a waiting list for a bigger, family-sized hospital unit but had been told the hospital did not see her getting off the waitlist “anytime soon.”

“It’s really difficult for a lot of rural families to be able to come down and try to find long-term accommodation,” Ms Rutledge said.

Not the only ones

A headshot of a woman with strawberry blonde hair wearing a white jacket
Gabrielle O’Kane says the distance can be traumatic for some people.(Supplied: National Rural Health Alliance)

National Rural Health Alliance chief executive Gabrielle O’Kane said some people missed out on caring for their loved ones in capital cities because of the high expenses associated with travel, accommodation, and missing out on paid work.

“I’ve actually had the experience myself where I had six to seven months’ worth of treatment in Sydney when I lived in Wagga Wagga with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,” Dr O’Kane said.

“I know how difficult it is being separated from family, and while there’s some assistance in terms of accommodation and travel assistance … when you’re away from your family for a long period of time there is emotional support and those sorts of things you don ‘t have.”

Dr O’Kane said travel schemes needed to incorporate the “vast majority of expenses” that people incurred living away from home to make it easier on patients.

A man grinning wearing a Santa hat
Ms Rutledge says her husband is a much-loved “typical Aussie dad.”(Supplied: Leisa Rutledge)

The Rutledges’ three teenage children are now doing online-only lessons from their central Queensland high school, which they complete at the school onsite at their dad’s hospital.

When asked whether she would consider going back to Yeppoon and traveling back and forth to Brisbane, Ms Rutledge was resolute.

“I would never do that,” she said.

“I just miss him.”

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Categories
Australia

NDIS participant Mitchell Pearce’s family fear he will die in hospital waiting for a home

A woman in her 60's or 70's in a green jumper standing close to a younger man with a red gingham shirt

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”.

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.

A fair-skinned woman who is aged 80, has fair hair, and a black jumper. It's just her face de ella-she has a serious expression
Judith Pearce says dealing with the NDIS has been heartbreaking.(ABC South West: Georgia Loney)

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.”

A composite photo of a man sitting in hospital
Mitchell Pearce’s family says he has deteriorated since being admitted to hospital four months ago.(Supplied)

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.

A younger woman in her 50's with a gray poncho and her mother in a gray top, are sitting on a couch looking at a photo
Justine Richmond and Judith Pearce say navigating the NDIS has been stressful.(ABC South West: Georgia Loney)

“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.

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Categories
Business

Townsville’s ‘Sugar Shaker’ hotel is getting a makeover, prompting admirers to sift through its history

A black and white photo of Townsville's cityscape in the mid 70s. A round building, with what looks to be a spout, towers over.

It has been described as one Australia’s most recognizable buildings after the Sydney Opera House, but this icon is set for a face lift.

Townsville’s Sugar Shaker hotel has defined the city skyline for more than 46 years with its original brown sandstone color.

But now the building’s exterior is being completely repainted, prompting admirers to sift through its history.

An old, but color photograph of a busy city street. A post office sits before a much taller circular high rise building.
The “Sugar Shaker” is located in Townsville’s city heart on Flinders Street.(Supplied: Townsville City Council )

The hotel will maintain its silhouette, which resembles a sugar shaker with a distinctive spout-like shape at its peak.

Dr Mark Jones, a prominent Architect and Associate Professor at the University of Queensland, said the Sugar Shaker had become one of the most recognizable buildings in Australia.

“Most imagery of Townsville incorporates this building, not dissimilarly to the Sydney Opera House,” he said.

“I don’t think, apart from those two examples, there’s another building in Australia that so exemplifies the city in which it’s located.”

A black and white photograph taken from a helicopter captures the construction of a circular high rise building in the 1970s.
Townsville’s “Sugar Shaker” was built in the 1970s and remains the tallest building in the CBD.(Supplied: Townsville City Council)

Dr Jones said at the time the building opened in 1976 as Hotel Townsville there were two similar properties in the country; the Tower Mill Hotel in Brisbane, and Australia Square in Sydney.

“I suspect that the architects for the Sugar Shaker drew some inspiration from those two buildings,” he said.

“But they went a step further with this interesting enclosure on the roof air conditioning cooling towers that gives it a sugar shaker shape.”

A black and white photo of Townsville's Flinders Street Mall.
The hotel is often used in imagery used to market Townsville.(Supplied: Townsville City Council)

46 years after the building was erected in Townsville, debate on whether the resemblance was intentional continues.

“I’m not sure if they were directly thinking of a sugar shaker or if that came from people afterwards,” Dr Jones said.

“Either way, it’s a wonderful symbol for cane-growing region.

“I can’t think of another example, except for the sort of kitschy big banana and big pineapple-type installations.”

A wide shot of Townsville's modern CBD.
Forty-six years after the building was erected, the “Sugar Shaker” is being refurbished.(ABC North Qld: Chloe Chomicki)

Director of marketing for lobby group Townsville Enterprise Lisa Woolfe said there were several local theories about the design.

“Apparently, it was modeled off a sugar shaker that was sold in a nearby cafe,” she said.

“But I have also heard over the years people refer to it as a lipstick.”

A color photograph of a regional city with one circular building preceding over all of the other properties.
There is debate about whether the buildings likeness to a sugar shaker was intentional.(Supplied: Townsville City Council)

Townsville’s deputy mayor Mark Molachino said he suspected the architects were intentional with their design.

“I don’t know the history of design, I will be honest,” he said.

“But whoever did design it has made it look as close to a sugar shaker as possible, so they have done a good job with the likeness.”

The hotel has been known as Centra Townsville, Townsville International Hotel and Holiday Inn over the years, but is currently owned by Hotel Grand Chancellor.

Manager Paul Gray said it was a “daunting” task to choose a new color for the “iconic” building.

“Locals are very passionate about the Sugar Shaker, but it did need a refresh,” Mr Gray said.

A photo of several balconies on a sandstone building. Half of them have been painted gray and white.
The ‘Sugar Shaker’ is expected to have been completely repainted by the end of August.(ABC North Qld: Chloe Chomicki)

The refurbishment, including a complete repaint of the building, is due to be completed by the end of August.

“The building itself is being painted in grey,” Mr Gray said.

“It’s going to have white running up the risers, just to break it up a little bit as well.

“I think it’ll tie in quite nicely with the buildings around the city and look a lot more modern.”

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