Yash
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Yash arrived in Australia in the early 2010s on a student visa. Five years later he applied for a protection visa.
While waiting for his application to be processed, he lost his working rights. This left him ‘living hand to mouth and homeless for the best part of that period’.
During this time, Yash was injured outside a pub as a result of an altercation.
He was airlifted to a city hospital and went straight to surgery. Parts of his vertebrae had shattered and were sitting on his spinal cord.
‘This was the beginning of my woes,’ he told the Royal Commission.
Not only was Yash facing possible deportation back to his home country, ‘which is well known for its mistreatment of people with disabilities,’ but the hospital discovered he didn’t have Medicare or private health insurance.
Yash couldn’t afford a wheelchair or rehabilitation and ‘received little to no care from physiotherapists or occupational therapists’.
Without a wheelchair Yash developed health complications. He lay in bed for six weeks with no rehabilitation, so his chances of regaining motor and neurological functions were limited.
Fortunately, a hospital social worker managed to get Yash ‘work rights’ and Medicare. This enabled him to be transferred to the rehabilitation ward.
But by then Yash had ‘racked up a $115,000 hospital bill’.
Being on a bridging visa, Yash was unable to access any form of government support or community-based funding programs. Without funding the hospital couldn’t source a customised wheelchair suited to Yash’s needs.
‘This left me in limbo for a while until they managed to “Frankenstein” a wheelchair from the older parts of wheelchairs they had lying around.’
Once Yash was discharged, without any income or funding, he ‘had to do without carers, nurses or support workers’. He also had to source his own consumables, such as medications, enemas, incontinence pads and catheters.
Although he now has a working visa he said it is impossible to find a job. ‘All they see is the disability and the wheelchair, not so much me the person sitting in the wheelchair.’
In June this year the hospital contacted Yash and asked him to return the wheelchair because the loan had expired.
‘The stress and pressure as well as the toll that this had on me in the middle of a pandemic is just unexplainable.’
Yash would like funding to be available to all people with disability regardless of the type of visa they hold. Funding should cover equipment, consumables and support workers.
‘People with disabilities that are from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds should not have to suffer by not receiving adequate support that they require due to their visa or immigration status.’
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.