Kerry-Ann, Shireen and Wilfred
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.
Kerry-Ann is autistic. She is in her 20s and lives in support accommodation with the help of the NDIS and support workers.
‘She loves music, she loves to go for a drive, she loves to just go to the beaches,’ her dad Wilfred told the Royal Commission. ‘She’s just happy doing the simple things in life like that … We look out for her as much as we can.’
‘She can be very loving, but she had times where she’d just have meltdowns,’ said her mum Shireen. ‘We’ve had a lot of troubles with service providers who just relinquish care at very short notice.’
Wilfred said it was difficult to find suitable, trained support workers. For example, one support worker tipped Kerry-Ann out of bed one morning and ‘frogmarched her to the backyard and sat her on the grass for 20 minutes in the nude’.
Another time, when Kerry-Ann spilt boiling water on herself, her support workers didn’t report it.
‘She ended up going to hospital, but it was 10 or 12 hours before we were even told about it. And in that time she really didn’t have any medical treatment.’
Wilfred and Shireen complained to the NDIA, which recommended the service provider give its workers more training.
‘Shortly after [reporting the incident] we were dumped,’ said Shireen. ‘Service was ceased straight away.’
‘They put it back to high turnover of staff and things like that because [Kerry-Ann] can be so difficult to manage,’ said Wilfred. ‘We have expectations as carers … and they don’t like that.’
After the service provider dumped Kerry-Ann, Wilfred took several weeks off work to care for her.
‘The last straw was when he had her 17 days in a row on his own,’ said Shireen.
Exhausted and with ‘nil carers or a suitable service provider’, they admitted Kerry-Ann to hospital.
‘There isn’t enough crisis accommodation … She was only in hospital because of service provision breakdown.’
The hospital kept Kerry-Ann in a general ward where the nurses complained that they were ‘not trained to deal with somebody like her’. They restrained and medicated her.
‘We had to get an advocate because they wouldn’t allow [Kerry-Ann] to go outside for fresh air … They were actually tying her to the bed … But initially they weren’t up-front about this.’
Wilfred and Shireen tried to find Kerry-Ann suitable accommodation but weren’t acting fast enough for the hospital, which applied for guardianship.
‘They wanted to move [Kerry-Ann] out of there into several [unsuitable] group homes,’ said Shireen. ‘It was to move us out of the way.’
‘We were just astounded that they tried to take her guardianship off us,’ said Wilfred, ‘because every decision we made for [Kerry-Ann] is thought out and just and for the better of [Kerry-Ann].’
The hospital dropped its application and after several months Wilfred and Shireen found a suitable provider ‘happy to take [Kerry-Ann] on outside of the hospital … and build a team’.
‘She was very much a busy young lady. She had something on every day other than Friday. So obviously the hospital situation didn’t help that,’ said Shireen. ‘So we’ve had to work really hard to get all of that back to where it was.’
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.