Natalya
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.
‘Within a couple of months of ending up in the wheelchair, I just had these constant obstacles put in front of me instead of people trying to help me.’
Natalya is in her 20s and has been a wheelchair user for a couple of years. She was studying to be a nurse but things changed dramatically when an operation left her with physical and cognitive impairment, she told the Royal Commission.
‘They said that basically people in wheelchairs can’t be nurses and they asked me to leave my course. That hurt so bad. I’d been in the chair maybe a month. I didn’t even have time to process yet what I can and can’t do. I didn’t need someone else telling me that’s what I can’t do. Coz I was still really capable.’
Natalya followed her ‘really big passion in health’ into a different course.
‘But discrimination just kept occurring. I enrolled as an online student … Then without any discussion of any sort I was forced onto campus during COVID times.’
That was ‘extremely dangerous’ for her physical and mental health, she said, and the lack of consultation ‘was just horrible’.
‘They saw no reason to have any online options for students with disabilities to participate and so I was actually pretty excluded.’
When Natalya did get to campus, the teacher talked to her with ‘a baby-like voice’ and ‘patted’ and demeaned her.
‘Like how you’d speak to someone as a toddler … She was like, “Oh, I’m surprised you even came to class, I’m surprised you can do the work.” … It was all focused on the fact that I had a disability … I’m used to people putting me down but the rest was just horrible.’
In class, teachers made none of the reasonable adjustments in Natalya’s disability plan.
‘I am hearing impaired … I couldn’t actually hear the majority of my classes.’ She ‘ended up having seizures’ in class because of the stress.
Teachers and students isolated and bullied Natalya.
‘Unfortunately, that’s a facet of society as well. No-one really talks to me, they talk to carers … I had one teacher who encouraged the class to pick on people with disabilities to get higher grades. People who didn’t participate would actually get lower grades. And he would talk about how people with disabilities were a burden on society, how NDIS shouldn’t be existing, how the disability pension was just a waste of people’s money. And I would just sit and listen to this.’
Natalya contacted the disability unit about the ‘constant belittlement’. Despite the university’s pledge to provide staff with disability training, ‘nothing ever went ahead’.
‘I’ve been raising these concerns and they are treating all this as a complete joke.’
She also faced ‘constant accessibility issues’ on campus. The elevators were too small for her wheelchair and she had to ‘crawl onto the floor, sit on the floor for the elevator ride’.
‘Often, I was late for class because of this and, yeah, it was such a dehumanising process.’
The university ‘didn’t have a single measure in place to do with disability at all’, Natalya said. She had to quit studying and has post-traumatic stress disorder ‘because of everything that’s happened’.
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.