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Hi it’s Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME where we provide tailor made solutions for long-term ventilated Adults& Children with Tracheostomies by improving their Quality of life and where we also provide tailor made solutions to hospitals and Intensive Care Units to save money and resources, whilst providing Quality Care!
In the last blog I shared a newspaper and also online article about one of our clients
Bureaucrats withdraw funds for disabled girl’s private nurse on same day she saved her life!
You can check out last week’s episode by clicking on the link here.
In this week’s blog, I want to share a couple of articles from the Australian newspaper, further highlighting the dilemma of the NDIS and how it impacts on Patients being unable to leave hospital or Intensive Care especially when they have medically complex issues such as ventilation and tracheostomy keeping them in Intensive Care long-term.
NDIS leaves black hole of abolished care services & NDIS abandons disabled to state hospitals
Rick Morton, social affairs reporter from the Australian identified what some of our clients are experiencing first hand, the relinquishing of state funding for life saving Intensive Home Care nursing services for ventilated, tracheostomised or medically complex Patients in the community.
State departments of health across the country are trying to delegate funding to the NDIS, including life saving Intensive Home Care nursing for either ventilated or medically complex Patients who otherwise would be in Intensive Care long-term.
The pitfalls are crystal clear. The NDIS is making no funding available for Registered Nurses, therefore those Patients in essence miss out on life saving funding and life saving care as our latest article showed.
It just makes no sense whatsoever as state departments of health will end up paying the bill anyways when Patients go back to state government funded public hospitals and occupy the most expensive bed in a hospital, which are Intensive Care beds.
Or may I be even suggesting that state governments remove funding to save money long-term and let those Patients die??? Most of our clients are certainly at risk of dying without Intensive Care nurses in the home as again the latest article showed.
At the end of the day, a readmission to Intensive Care is by far more expensive than Intensive Home Care, period!
The NDIS not funding Registered Nursing support and having potentially support workers looking after ventilated, tracheostomised or medically complex Patients is a disaster waiting to happen, will cost lives and has cost lives in the past. A fact state governments conveniently choose to ignore.
The dilemma once again is highlighted very well in the articles here
NDIS leaves black hole of abolished care services
By
RICK MORTON
The Australian
12:00AM January 15, 2018
The $22 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme is on a collision course with state and federal agencies over “interface” problems with other systems such as health and aged care after revelations that a woman has spent 15 months in a hospital bed due to inaction.
The case of Julie Hermans, who has been left in Murwillumbah District Hospital in northern NSW since October 2016 after contracting atypical Guillain-Barre Syndrome and becoming a quadriplegic, has highlighted the unfinished work of NDIS design and how it fits with other services.
The Productivity Commission last year warned state and federal governments to keep services that do not fit into the disability scheme, though there is little that any level of government can do to enforce this. “The interface between the NDIS and other disability and mainstream services is critical for participant outcomes and the financial sustainability of the scheme,” it said. “Some disability supports are not being provided because of unclear boundaries about the responsibilities of the different levels of government. Governments must set clearer boundaries at the operational level around ‘who supplies what’ … and only withdraw services when continuity of service is assured.”
Ms Hermans is forced to pay $60 a day to stay in hospital after the NDIS ignored a request for accommodation support. While she is only 51, an aged care home might have been an option of last resort, although none in her area could support her high-care needs. Daughter Vinamali “Mali” Hermans, a 19-year-old university student, says it is “heartbreaking”.
“It has been so hard, a lot of times I have wondered if I have been pushing hard enough,” she said. “It (the NDIS) is almost designed so you cannot understand.”
One of the key issues in the border dispute between the NDIS and other programs is the loss of advocacy funding, particularly in NSW where almost $11m is due to expire in July. Advocacy under the new NDIS regime is crucial because these independent voices act as intermediaries for disabled people yet the NDIS itself was never intended to fund such services.
About $40 million in advocacy funding across states and territories will disappear by 2020.
“This area of interface issues is very problematic for the NDIS and there are going to be more and more opportunities for arguments about which system pays for what,” Disability Advocacy Network Australia chief executive Mary Mallett said.
“We have heard from our network that interface problems are occurring in housing, transport, health, justice — and we are only in the middle of the NDIS rollout.”
Writer and disability activist El Gibbs received home care support under the old NSW system for a chronic condition but no longer does. “The government sold that and now it is only available for people with an aged care or an NDIS package, which means people who used to receive support for chronic illness no longer do,” she said.
The NSW community justice program, which helps prisoners and people attending court who happen to have intellectual disabilities, is also due to expire this year. “State governments and system changes are profoundly disadvantaging people on the fringes of disability far more than even the old system,” Ms Gibbs said.
A National Disability Insurance Agency spokeswoman said the supply of disability accommodation “is in short supply and there are many people seeking appropriate accommodation in this area. The NDIA will follow up on the specific participant circumstance quoted however … cannot disclose private information.”
NDIS abandons disabled to state hospitals
By
RICK MORTON and MICHAEL OWEN
The Australian
12:00AM January 16, 2018
The agency in charge of the $22 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme routinely refuses to fund supported housing for people with severe disabilities who are stuck in hospitals, arguing they are in a “rehab” phase.
After revealing the case of 51-year-old mother Julie Hermans, who has been left in limbo in a northern NSW hospital for more than 15 months, The Australian has learned of a pattern of conduct at the National Disability Insurance Agency that has affected at least 10 people with no other accommodation options.
The NDIS will eventually fund about $700 million a year in “supported disability accommodation” options for people with complex disabilities who cannot live alone, but so far just $2.7m has been paid, while $1.3m has gone to consultants for “strategic advice”.
People left in the hospital system are funded by state governments, not the NDIS, a fact that has become crucial in the rollout of the scheme.
Ms Hermans, stranded in Murwillumbah District Hospital after contracting atypical Guillain-Barre Syndrome resulting in quadriplegia, was asked to pay $60 a day because the hospital said it was “no longer appropriate” for her to remain there.
The NSW government yesterday conceded it was privatising all group homes and disability services it previously provided, the last of which will be transferred to the non-government sector this financial year.
In a stern warning to the federal agency, a NSW Family and Community Services spokesman said its “expectations are that the NDIA will provide sufficient support co-ordination to enable any person requiring accommodation to find a suitable home”.
A spokesman for federal Social Services Minister Dan Tehan said the NDIA “will work with the participant (Ms Hermans) and NSW Health to address any concerns”.
“The interface between the NDIS and existing health systems is complex and all sides are working to ensure NDIS participants have integrated access to the appropriate supports from all systems.”
The tension between the systems is symptomatic of a broader design flaw in the NDIS: little policy work has been finalised as to where the boundary lies between the national scheme and state systems such as health, justice, transport and mental health. A Productivity Commission review, released in October, reprimanded all levels of government for withdrawing from services that will not be supplied under the NDIS.
In South Australia yesterday, state Disabilities Minister Katrine Hildyard brought together several NDIS providers to warn that a raft of problems in the scheme, mainly around administrative shortfalls by the federal agency, were causing stress to families.
She called on the federal government to fix nine key problems with the rollout and demanded the NDIA “cut its ideological cap on staffing”.
Ms Hildyard said she had written before Christmas to Mr Tehan, but had been ignored. She said providers were continually left to foot the bill because of problems with payments from the NDIA. She said 11 of the 13 regions were still without local co-ordinators.
If you want to find out how we can help you to get your loved one out of Intensive Care including palliative care or Long-term acute care (also nursing home) or if you find that you have insufficient support for your loved one at home on a ventilator, if you want to know how to get funding for our service or if you have any questions please send me an email to [email protected] or call on one of the numbers below.
Australia/New Zealand +61 41 094 2230
USA/Canada +1 415-915-0090
UK/Ireland +44 118 324 3018
Also, check out our careers section here
www.intensivecareathome.com/careers
We are currently hiring ICU/PICU nurses for clients in Melbourne, Sunbury and in South Gippsland/Victoria.
We are an NDIS, TAC (Victoria) and DVA (Department of Veteran affairs) approved community service provider in Australia.
We have also been part of the Royal Melbourne health accelerator program for innovative health care companies earlier this year!
https://www.thermh.org.au/news/innovation-funding-announced-melbourne-health-accelerator
Thank you for tuning into this week’s blog.
This is Patrik Hutzel from INTENSIVE CARE AT HOME and I see you again next week in another update!