Mr HENDERSON - 1999-10-20
Again, my question goes to the failure of this government to deliver on basic services. Carpentaria Disability Services have recently terminated their contracts with Territory Health Services to provide personal care and home support to 6 people with physical disabilities. This support service allowed people to live in their own home. Carpentaria wrote to the minister last month, and I seek leave to table the letter.
Leave granted.
Mr HENDERSON: The letter states:
We are terminating this agreement as the ability for personal care and home support scheme to meet those needs is insupportable as a result of continued and substantial shortfalls in funding from Territory Health Services.
Minister, do you agree that Carpentaria Services would not have handed back the care of these 6 people lightly, and would do so only as a last resort, demonstrating that funding problems have reached systemic and critical levels? Do you think people with disabilities deserve to be so severely short-changed by your government?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, the issue of services for disabled people is a vexed one. It is pretty much at the top of the agenda for the Department of Territory Health Services. I have spoken with Carpentaria Disability Services. I attended their board meeting and spoke with their staff and board members as recently as a couple of months ago. This decision was signalled at that time.
There are some immense difficulties in providing accommodation support services for people with challenging behaviours. Often the models that we need, need to be invented for the particular people that we’re talking about, so difficult is it to care for them. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s an issue of neglect. It means that there’s an issue of cost. It is immensely expensive to provide appropriate services for people who have severe and profound disabilities.
It is an issue that is at the forefront of this government’s mind. We have a review under way now through a committee that was set up by the previous Minister for Health to look at disability services right across the Territory. We are in negotiations with the Commonwealth government on an issue called unmet need, which I understand is up for debate by way of an MPI this afternoon, so we’ll have an opportunity for those who are interested to hear the debate and hear what Labor can do about the issue of unmet need.
At the end of it, not only do we need cash but we also need some fairly inventive solutions to address the very unique circumstances that these people find themselves in. Insofar as Carpentaria Disability Services found itself in a position where it did not believe our cash was sufficient to cater for the needs of the 6 people, yes, there’ll be something else put in place.
If the notion is that somehow we will abandon these people in the streets of Darwin, that’s a very nonsensical and callous notion to be putting. Yes, they’ll be cared for. We will find some other arrangement. There are a number of agencies that have a very proud record of providing services for disabled people in the Northern Territory. All of them, in some way, shape or form, receive money from this government.
We will continue to engage in a partnership with the non-government sector and we will continue, through moving to a purchaser/provider model, to adequately account for the costs and to adequately contract services out so that organisations realise that, notwithstanding they put their own philanthropic effort in, the government’s resources will be made available to them to care for those unfortunate Territorians with profound disabilities.
Leave granted.
Mr HENDERSON: The letter states:
We are terminating this agreement as the ability for personal care and home support scheme to meet those needs is insupportable as a result of continued and substantial shortfalls in funding from Territory Health Services.
Minister, do you agree that Carpentaria Services would not have handed back the care of these 6 people lightly, and would do so only as a last resort, demonstrating that funding problems have reached systemic and critical levels? Do you think people with disabilities deserve to be so severely short-changed by your government?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, the issue of services for disabled people is a vexed one. It is pretty much at the top of the agenda for the Department of Territory Health Services. I have spoken with Carpentaria Disability Services. I attended their board meeting and spoke with their staff and board members as recently as a couple of months ago. This decision was signalled at that time.
There are some immense difficulties in providing accommodation support services for people with challenging behaviours. Often the models that we need, need to be invented for the particular people that we’re talking about, so difficult is it to care for them. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s an issue of neglect. It means that there’s an issue of cost. It is immensely expensive to provide appropriate services for people who have severe and profound disabilities.
It is an issue that is at the forefront of this government’s mind. We have a review under way now through a committee that was set up by the previous Minister for Health to look at disability services right across the Territory. We are in negotiations with the Commonwealth government on an issue called unmet need, which I understand is up for debate by way of an MPI this afternoon, so we’ll have an opportunity for those who are interested to hear the debate and hear what Labor can do about the issue of unmet need.
At the end of it, not only do we need cash but we also need some fairly inventive solutions to address the very unique circumstances that these people find themselves in. Insofar as Carpentaria Disability Services found itself in a position where it did not believe our cash was sufficient to cater for the needs of the 6 people, yes, there’ll be something else put in place.
If the notion is that somehow we will abandon these people in the streets of Darwin, that’s a very nonsensical and callous notion to be putting. Yes, they’ll be cared for. We will find some other arrangement. There are a number of agencies that have a very proud record of providing services for disabled people in the Northern Territory. All of them, in some way, shape or form, receive money from this government.
We will continue to engage in a partnership with the non-government sector and we will continue, through moving to a purchaser/provider model, to adequately account for the costs and to adequately contract services out so that organisations realise that, notwithstanding they put their own philanthropic effort in, the government’s resources will be made available to them to care for those unfortunate Territorians with profound disabilities.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016