Anonymous – 02/10/2021

My Federal member sent me an email about having your say on NDIS reform.

I’ve looked at it and it is beyond overwhelming. I don’t even understand what it all means or how to fill any of it out.
It’s not user friendly at all and require a level of intelligence and understanding that I obviously don’t have.

I’d like to say our experience with accessing the NDIS was horrific.
The constant rejections were beyond a joke.
The people helping me suggested going the psychosocial route but even then we saw more rejections.

At the time my daughter had been bed ridden for over 6 yrs. She missed out on all her senior schooling (3 yrs) and was slowly getting worse and yet we were rejected time and time again. I’m on a carer pension so I could not afford to get her the help she desperately needed. Amelia had no friends, was terrified of leaving the house and terrified of people even coming to the house. As you can imagine this was heart breaking to see.

During 2020 when I tried for NDIS, I just wanted to give up. My daughter wanted to end her life. There really was no hope at all.

I had to go via the AAT which was a dreadful process but got the results needed and that was to be granted access to the NDIS.

We eventually gained access to NDIS in late Sept 2020.

Even then the process was long and difficult.

We eventually got a package in late Nov 2020.

Services were booked out doing peoples end of year reviews so we didn’t begin using services till Jan 2021.

What have NDIS has done for my daughter it’s beyond incredible.

Her life has done a 180 degree turn around and she is a different girl.

She has a long way to go but no longer speaks of ending her life.

We have a great allied health team that come to our house and this is working so well.

Amelia has a female support worker has 4 horses and is teaching Amelia to ride and carer for a horse. For my daughter to wake up and say…woo hoo mum I get to go see the kids (horses) this afternoon brings tears to my eye every single time.

I could go on and on about the wonderful life changing help we get now we have NDIS but I’ll stop here.