Holden and Hadley
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Hadley is mum to Holden, who’s in his teens and has a learning disability and an acquired brain injury caused by a tumour.
For several years after he was born, Holden didn’t put on weight and had other health issues. The doctors blamed his mother.
‘I kept on taking him to the doctors and saying, “This is happening, and this is happening.” I got told, like, when I finally got the report years later, the doctors they have written down, “She is suffering postnatal depression.”’
When Holden was three, Hadley persuaded the doctors to do a brain scan.
‘He was getting worse at this stage,’ Hadley told the Royal Commission. ‘They kept on saying, “He is going to grow out of it, don’t worry.” They were treating me like I had a problem and was making up all these symptoms.’
The scan revealed a tumour in Holden’s brain stem.
‘They said, “We have to operate to see what type it is” … I wanted more information. They said, “No, no, no we have to do it.” So, they diagnosed on the Thursday, they told me they had to operate on him on Sunday because it was life and death for him.’
Hadley said they didn’t explain to her the risks of the operation.
After surgery, Holden developed an infection which ‘contributed to his brain damage now’.
Holden struggles at school and has meltdowns when he’s frustrated.
‘He can’t follow rules properly and he forgets rules … He started to learn reading and he couldn’t do it. They kept on forcing it upon him without modifying.’
Hadley said one school, rather than focusing on what Holden was good at, encouraged the worst aspects of his behaviour to get more funding.
‘The school said … they could apply for the funding under severe behaviour … So, they decided to expose him to situations that he couldn’t cope with … It was so they could say, “Look how bad he is, look at all these things he did.”’
Hadley said the school also asked medical specialists to change the wording of their reports.
‘I call it bullying in the process of the funding application … They wanted to get the highest amount of money they could … They would give me a note saying, “You have to take these back to the specialist. You have to get them to word their report with these words in these ways.”’
Hadley said she had to ask the hospital to make doctors change the wording of reports because that was ‘the way the education department will accept it’.
‘They don’t want to know what the child can do, which is what doctors say. They want to know what the child can’t do, and the worst-case scenario this child can be.’
Holden is now in high school.
‘He could have a conversation with you about a nuclear bomb and how it works, do you understand? Or something very technical, he can verbalise a lot of things. His written skills, his reading skills are still back at like grade 1 or grade 2. He never progressed. So, I keep on saying, even with all the struggle with him for all these years, there was no point him going to school … It was all a big battle. It only caused him stress.’
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.