Tweed mother condemns government for evicting ‘critical’ children’s health service
Parents have condemned a state government decision to evict a children’s health service from a hospital site. Read the full story
Gold Coast
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Parents across the Gold Coast and Northern Rivers are outraged over the eviction of a longstanding children’s health service from a border hospital site.
Tweed mother Ninya Ashdown is among hundreds of parents from Pimpama in the north to Grafton in the south who use the “critical” early childhood intervention services offered by Shaping Outcomes.
Shaping Outcomes offers specialist programs for children with developmental issues and disabilities.
Currently it services about 450 children ranging from infancy to nine-years-old.
Now the service is preparing to sue the NSW government after it was evicted from the old Tweed Hospital site where it has operated for more than 40 years from a community-built building.
Shaping Outcomes staff were told there was “no space” for them at the new $723 million Tweed Valley Hospital at Cudgen.
Ms Ashdown said the decision sent a clear message to parents that the service “wasn’t important enough to come to the new hospital”.
“(The NSW Government) has obviously lost sight of what people in the community need,” the 46-year-old mother said.
“Like most other things in the disability and special needs sector, it just gets dismissed.
“When I first heard about it, I just couldn’t believe the government would do that because I know I’m not the only parent who would say that Shaping Outcomes has had a life-changing existence in our lives.”
In 2015 Ms Ashdown gave birth to her son Nikolaj. Only a few months later she began to notice he wasn’t like other infants.
“Having your first child is scary enough and then they turn six months old and you realise they can’t do tummy time and something is not right,” she said.
For months, Ms Ashdown’s son was subjected to myriad of blood work, MRI scans and a host of other tests before he was eventually diagnosed with a rare genetic mutation that left him with part of his x-chromosome missing.
At the same time, Ms Ashdown was diagnosed with postnatal depression.
It was an outpatient doctor who recommended she sign up with Shaping Outcomes.
“I honestly don’t know what I would have done, if I didn’t have them,” Ms Ashdown said while breaking down in tears.
“Having a child with special needs, there isn’t a parent on Earth that would disagree with me, it’s very isolating.
“Shaping Outcomes became a refuge for me.”
Ms Ashdown’s now nine-year-old son still uses the service, which has been forced to take up emergency temporary accommodation following the eviction from the hospital.
“If they hadn’t been located on the hospital site where I was spending half of my time anyway, I don’t think I would have been (capable) of finding another place,” Ms Ashdown added.
“That’s why this decision just blows my mind. I’m terrified for all the parents who need this service but won’t access it because it’s not on hospital grounds.
“But also for families with limited travel options, or children with sensory issues that don’t like travelling to places. Trying to get them to appointments is nearly impossible.
“It needs to be a one-stop shop.”
A NSW state government spokesperson said the health district “remains in discussion” with Shaping Outcomes and is “considering future uses of the remaining majority portion” of the old Tweed Hospital.
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