Kiernan
Content Warning: These stories are about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and may include references to suicide or self-harming behaviours. They may contain graphic descriptions and strong language and may be distressing. Some narratives may be about First Nations people who have passed away. If you need support, please see Contact & support.
‘Those organisations are really about controlling the client and holding onto their cash cow and going to whatever lengths they have to.’
Kiernan is in his 40s and has neuromyotonia, which causes severe muscle twitching, stiffness and cramps.
When doctors admitted Kiernan to hospital several years ago, his NDIS service provider stopped all his supports.
‘They didn’t make sure I had a mobile phone, wheelchair or anything like that. They just cut it off straightaway … like zero notice,’ Keirnan told the Royal Commission. ‘My carers didn’t want to leave me just abandoned, so a couple of times they went in to … make sure I had basic things … As soon as the organisation found out they just forbid them to come and help me.’
Kiernan said he couldn’t charge his phone so he couldn’t let people know where he was. When he was discharged, he had no-one to help him get home.
‘I had to try to talk anyone who was going past to try to get someone to bring a hoist or something to get me out of bed into the wheelchair.’
He then had to load his belongings onto his wheelchair and leave the hospital.
‘I had to MacGyver my way out of the situation.’
Because Kiernan didn’t have his wallet to pay for a taxi, he had to ‘ride [the wheelchair] all the way home with all [his] stuff’.
Later when he returned to the hospital for major surgery, the same thing happened.
‘The provider would forbid me from having anyone … It meant that I couldn’t get out of the hospital so I was stuck there for nearly a month.’
Kiernan hired his own support worker to help him get home. He said he understands that the NDIS doesn’t fund support workers in hospital, but it can lead to neglect.
‘There's disability support and nursing. They're two different roles … I know that if I go into hospital again under NDIS rules … I'm going to find myself in the same situation, stuck in hospital again for a month … and having to ride [the wheelchair] home. And my condition is not as good as it was then.’
Not long after the hospital discharged Kiernan, his service provider asked him to sign a new contract.
‘They're not like a residential tenancy contract, you know, an actual contract with sides. It just was all one-sided. They wanted six weeks notice for me to leave them … But they were able to withdraw service without any notice.’
Kiernan said the organisation bullied his support workers to try to get him to sign the contract and told him if he didn’t sign, he couldn’t employ those workers independently for a period of time.
‘Time … was important because I needed carers right away. I just left that organisation altogether. I didn’t get their services at all from that point. At that point I thought it was all over.’
The service provider then sent him a bill for several thousands of dollars, ‘for the time that they were denying [him] service’.
‘So they leave me abandoned with no service and send me a bill for that time.’
Kiernan ignored the bill.
‘I just thought that was absurd. And I also knew that I could prove that they didn’t supply that service because of conversations. I kept the emails [from them] making it clear that they were denying service.’
The service provider hired a law firm and a court sent a bailiff to his home demanding he pay the bill for services he didn’t receive.
‘It was like robodebt on steroids.’
Kiernan persuaded a community lawyer to countersue, and the provider ‘withdrew their lawsuit’.
‘The amount of stress it caused me, I was shaking that much I couldn’t sleep … It affected me health-wise over the long term.’
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.