NDIS funding cuts on the Gold Coast see families left to suffer in agony

Dozens of Gold Coast families are being left to suffer in agony as government bureaucrats fumble under a mountain of paperwork and cut funding and care.

DOZENS of Gold Coast families are being left to suffer in agony as government bureaucrats fumble under a mountain of paperwork and cut funding and care.

Volunteering Gold Coast boss Simon Nugus says he knows of another 59 cases like Shannon Manning who are suffering similar heartbreak and frustration with the National Disability Insurance Network.

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Gold Coast mother Shannon Manning reads a letter from the NDIS with her disabled children Madden 6, (left) and Meadow 7 at their Maudsland home. Picture Glenn Hampson

Mr Nugus said the implementation and administration of the system needed to change.

Volunteering Gold Coast receives three new submissions a day from families that need help. They include:

* A 10-year-old boy in foster care diagnosed with an intellectual impairment, autism spectrum disorder and severe anxiety has been given no core support funding and only 2.5 hours a month of therapy, despite doctor requests for more help. The level assistance is four times less the help he got before the NDIS.

NDIS HAS 15 PER CENT INCREASE IN RECIPIENTS IN PAST THREE MONTHS

Shannon Manning talks about the struggle raising her disabled children and grappling with the NDIS to Labor Shadow Minister Bill Shorten at her Maudsland home. Picture Glenn Hampson

* An 18-year-old man with cerebral palsy and hemiplegia requires weekly physical therapies to prevent his limbs from succumbing to atrophy. Despite being provided with assessments and reports from a physiotherapist, occupational therapist and exercise physiologist recommending continuation of routine therapy, the NDIA determined that he would receive only $1792 annual funding for required therapies.

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Additionally, as a condition of funding under the scheme, it required that his therapists each prepare formal reports for lodgment to the NDIA quarterly. The estimated annual costs of these reports total $4800, $3008 more than his funding.

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* A 35-year-old Gold Coast woman who has a complex diagnostic history, including intellectual disability, DiGeorge syndrome (22q11 Deletion Syndrome), Trisomy 22, depression, acute anxiety, Multiple endocrine neoplasia, Splenomegaly and a pituitary tumour.

Doctors recommended that her daily supports increase from six hours per day to 12 to keep her alive.

Mr Nugus said the NDIA seemingly chose to ignore clinical recommendations and instead reduced the woman’s funded supports by 40 per cent.

* A 43-year-old woman suffered a stroke after major brain surgery. She previously experienced more than 300 seizures a day and now has a cognitive impairment, hemiplegia, atrophy and partial vision loss.

NDIS conducted an urgent review supported by two occupational therapy assessments, medical certification from Gold Coast Hospital and health service neurosurgeons and the woman’s GP.

Five months later, the NDIA was yet to respond to the review.

“The scheme is unsustainable not because of the legislation, but because policy makers refuse the needs of participants and families ahead of budgetary matters,” Mr Nugus, a trained lawyer, wrote to politicians.

“The experiences of people we support ... reflect a system which is placing vulnerable people at significant and unacceptable risk.”

Do you know anyone else who has been affected by the NDIS on the Gold Coast? Contact [e-mail]

Originally published as NDIS funding cuts on the Gold Coast see families left to suffer in agony