By NOEL MURPHY
A LEADING health economist has accused Geelong’s NDIS trial centre of deliberately cutting clients from services and funding, denying their rights and ignoring complaints.
In a savage attack on the high-profile Gillard Government initiative, Dr Katrina Alford said the NDIS was endangering the health of vulnerable people with a withering array of bureaucratic red tape and abuse of operational guidelines.
“The NDIS is reprehensible,” she told the Independent.
“They don’t tell participants the Regional Information and Advocacy Council (RIAC) has been funded to take care of complaints about the NDIS.
“Ninety-nine per cent of people have no idea about it and are seriously floundering thinking it’s just them when they’re perfectly within their rights to complain, with legal assistance, to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.”
Dr Alford, a senior lecturer in economics at Melbourne University before setting up her own consultancy, said the NDIS appeared in breach of operational guidelines and the spirit of its legislation.
The insurance scheme was “stripping participants and their families” of services they previously received and refusing to hear their complaints.
“In many instances they refuse to allow immediate family members, guardians and disability service providers to attend planning meetings, which creates a massive power imbalance between participants and the system.”
Dr Alford said NDIS adopted a one-size-fits-all approach, “denying the diversity and specificity of varying individual needs”.
Participants seeking reviews of decisions faced the suspension of all support services during the review period, which could take several weeks, she said.
Numerous complaints about the NDIS have been lodged with the Independent since last week’s story on Grovedale MS sufferer Rob Goodman losing support services.
The complaints included:
– the NDIS sending letters to blind clients;
– cuts to services for a confused schizophrenia sufferer who, thinking NDIS phone calls were from telemarketers, rejected their requests;
– a cerebral palsy victim’s carer support cut from 15 to five hours a week; and
– security refused for the family of a problem autism client.
The NDIS has come under repeated criticism since its inception, including former Centrelink chief Jeff Whalan likening the scheme to “a plane that took off before it had been built and is being completed in the air”.
The Whalan review cited a large number of significant problems with guidance, IT systems, data and staffing.
Ernst & Young partner Mark Dixon this week was reported saying urgent work was needed to halt problems in the scheme’s eventual rollout, scheduled for 2018, and that the disability service sector and governments were poorly prepared for the changes involved.
“There needs to be an honest conversation about how this is going to be delivered… in theory it will be more efficient but it will take five to 10 years,” he was reported to have said.
Former Treasury secretary Ken Henry has labelled the scheme unaffordable.
Treasurer Mr Hockey has said even the NDIS pilot program suffered “a massive blowout in costs”.
A “launch centre” for one of four NDIS trials was set up in Geelong’s Lt Malop St with 100 staff. The headquarters will employ up to 300 when the scheme is fully operational in five years.
The head office of the NDIS’ umbrella agency, National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) was set up in Brougham St offices opposite the city’s TAC building.
The NDIS had not provided a response to the claims when the Independent went to press.
