Trevor
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Trevor has been employed by a large disability service provider which runs several accommodation sites and a day program for people with disability.
Trevor told the Royal Commission that the company generated a multimillion dollar operating surplus over the last half decade. ‘This money however is not being spent on maintaining basic minimum standards,’ he says. He cites obvious building maintenance problems which have been ignored to the point of structural failure.
‘Another minimum standard failure is no Work Health and Safety (WHS) meetings were held for more than 18 months, and no WHS agendas or minutes are displayed on any notice boards at any [company sites] for staff and participants to view.’
Trevor is surprised that these WHS failings have never been picked up by disability sector watchdogs.
Medication errors have also been a problem, Trevor says. When he heard about a client being given triple the dose of insulin required and ending up in hospital as a result, Trevor checked the records. He found details of a client who had experienced dozens of critical incidents related to their diabetes in just over a year, all of them needing medical intervention.
Trevor says that the company uses a ‘corrupted’ database for recording critical incidents that allows dates, names and information to be changed by other people in the future. Trevor says such tampering has occurred.
For staff trying to take action on problems like medication errors, ‘that corrupted database would be similar to hiring a fireman with no arms and no legs to fight bushfires.’
The company recently failed its NDIS Quality Standards Accreditation, Trevor says. ‘To witness a disability organisation flop, after 18 months of preparation, was visually stunning.’
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.