The NDIS full quid a matter of timing and luck

WHEN Gary Newton signed up for the National Disability ­Insurance Scheme a staff member gave him some advice: get in quick.

Gary Newton and wife Annie at their home in Geelong Victoria. Gary is 62yo and had Polio as a child. He is one of the National Disability Insurance Scheme participants in Geelong trial.

WHEN  polio survivor Gary Newton eventually signed up for the National Disability ­Insurance Scheme a staff member gave him some simple advice: get in quick — tell us what you need now.

The 62-year-old knew all about it: the cut-off for the NDIS is 65, and those who miss are ­relegated to the poorer aged-care system forevermore.

“I am absolutely glad I missed going down the aged-care route,” he told The Weekend Australian. “I guess when I got polio it was wrong place, wrong time. Now it was the right place, right time.”

Mr Newton has lived in Geelong, one of the first four NDIS trial sites, since 1979 and has been losing mobility as he gets older. “I heard there was a cut-off and seeing as I’d worked all my life since I was 15 I thought I’d put my hand up see what help I could get,” he said. “Basically they tell me it is meant to look after me for the rest of my life, although a staff member told me ‘put your hand up now for what you need ... I don’t think they will be as generous down the track as they are right now’.”

Mr Newton said the inevitable creation of the “haves and have-nots” in aged care was a “hardcore” issue for people to deal with. “It’s a typical political situation, isn’t it: you promise the world and the reality necessarily looks a lot different,” he said.

“It’s not unreasonable for people in dire situations to want to be on here but I have doubts about how realistic the time­frames are for this scheme. It feels like it’s going to need longer to get it right.”

He said his experience in signing up for support was mostly positive, although delays and “double handling” within the agency were frustrating. “The way they organise the support from start to finish, they seem to be double handling everything,” he said. “And my assessment was done by two occupational therapists who weren’t necessarily the best people for the job. They seemed to revert back to the old days.”

Mr Newton was provided with a wheelchair, money for bathroom modifications and some one-on-one support for three months while his wife Annie, his carer, was recovering from a knee replacement.