Kat
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.
‘I just walk differently. It’s not disability, it’s a “diffability”. I’m just different. Let’s just call it “diffability”. We’re all just different.’
Kat is in her 50s and has a disease of the spine that causes muscle atrophy and pain.
‘This is a life-threatening, progressive, degenerative disease,’ Kat told the Royal Commission. ‘If I make a wrong move, I can die – that’s how dramatic it is. I’m trying to minimise every risk I can to still be physically functioning, cognitively functioning and contributing to the community.’
Kat uses a wheelchair and works in the creative industries sector.
‘There was probably about two years where I was completely couch-bound, couldn’t move more than maybe 10 metres if that, and so I know what it’s like 100 per cent to be at the absolute mercy of everything out of your control.’
Kat is now supported by the NDIS, ‘the most wonderful scheme that has changed [her] life’.
‘I hadn’t been able to drive for years and I got hand control. You know, like, the actual outcomes of the money that is being used is tremendous for people with disabilities.’
However, Kat said abuse is ‘rife within the system’.
‘When people are aware that there’s, you know, a pool of money that they can tap into … it just turns people into green-eyed monsters and their humanism goes out the window.’
Kat said service providers employ support workers who are poorly trained or have no qualifications. For example, before she had her car modified so she could drive, a service provider drove her to physiotherapy appointments. One day, the provider sent Kat a driver who broke several laws.
‘He stopped on the top of the hill in the middle of the road to put his seatbelt on … His phone was balancing dangerously on his knee for directions on a map … And then we got to an intersection … he went through a fricking red light. It’s a very dangerous intersection … He had earphones in the whole way.’
Kat said he stopped ‘with a massive jolt’, further injuring her back.
‘I wasn’t asking someone to bloody, fricking pluck hairs from my underarms. I was, “Can you just send me a driver?” It wasn’t that hard a task, [but] if that’s happening at that level, what’s happening to people that have to have catheters put in every second day?’
Kat said she also had ‘terrible experiences’ with support workers who help her in her house.
‘I’m already at the fricking mercy of the world when I can’t do so many things, you know. I’m at risk of falling … I don’t want a risk of someone coming in that might be casing the joint.’
Kat told the Royal Commission she also faces barriers when she goes out. If she arrives in a wheelchair, restaurants often say they’re full.
A disability lift at her local shopping centre ‘has never worked’.
‘It’s brand-new, but someone has turned the electricity off. It has never worked in all the years I’ve been living here because it’s going to be too much trouble if it breaks down … There’s only probably one or two people that use it a week, let’s not bother. And that’s not okay.’
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.