Disability Royal Commission: Government “forgot and ignored” people with disability in early COVID response

Report finds serious failure by government to not consult with people with disability about COVID, leaving them feeling stressed and “ignored.”

The government’s failure led to a lack of policy to address the specific needs of people with disability in COVID-19, a new report has found. Picture: iStock

The high levels of stress and anxiety felt by people with disability in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic were “immeasurably heightened” by a feeling they had been forgotten by governments, the Disability Royal Commission has found.

The commission also said it was a “serious failure” that no government department or agency, including the health department, made any significant effort to consult with people with a disability in the pandemic’s first few months.

This failure led to a lack of policy to address the specific needs of people with disability in COVID-19, its new report to government tabled in parliament on Monday found.

The commission’s report summarises the experiences of people with disability during COVID-19 and offers 22 recommendations to better protect those with living with disability during a pandemic.

Commission co-chair Ron Sackville said the lines of communication between decision-makers and people with disability had failed in the pandemic’s early stages through to April at least, leaving them feeling “forgotten and ignored”.

“From the very outset of the pandemic people with disability were extremely anxious, stressed and frightened as they found themselves severely affected by an unprecedented health crisis”, the report said.

“Their already high levels of anxiety, stress and fear were immeasurably heightened by the feeling that they had been forgotten by governments and the general community and that the responses to the pandemic had ignored the severe challenges they faced.”

It concluded people with disability had not been on the government’s radar despite their increased susceptibility to the virus.

For instance, they were not supported to obtain access to COVID-19 tests or screening. Also, people working in disability care were not given priority access to personal protective equipment, leaving both the workers and those in their care at greater risk of infection.

“During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic no agency of the Australian Government, including the Department of Health and other agencies responsible for disability policy, made any significant effort to consult with people with disability or their representative organisations,” it found.

“Even allowing for the novel challenges presented by the coronavirus this was a serious failure.

“The failure to consult during the critical early period contributed to the Australian Government neglecting to develop policies specifically addressing the needs of people with disability and the challenges confronting them in an emergency unprecedented in modern times.”

The Advisory Committee on Health Emergency Response to coronavirus for People with Disability was established by the government on April 2, and the report found it had been a “positive development” in supporting people with disability.

The report recommends the government ensures all agencies involved in the COVID-19 response establish and implement formal mechanisms to consult with people with disability and their representatives.

It singled out the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission for failing to react quickly enough to the change brought on by COVID-19, and sticking to the same practice standards and policies to try and address the pandemic.

“The NDIS Commission followed this course notwithstanding that circumstances had changed radically and the risks to NDIS participants had increased substantially”, the report said.

The report warned that the federal government shouldn’t look to hide behind the federal system to avoid its international obligations to protect the human rights of people with disability.

And it was “striking” that the NDIS Commission had not been consulted prior to the release of the government’s COVID-19 plan.

It recommended that the health department create a team to develop plans and programs to protect the health and wellbeing of people with disability during emergencies such as COVID-19.