An angry breed: Handle with care
October 19th, 2007Many carers in Australia are at odds about how to accommodate the needs of their disabled children.
From the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald:
Writer Adele Horin analyzes what’s behind the creation of Australia’s new political party, the Carers’ Alliance, which has claimed a role in the upcoming federal elections there.
She finds a growing gap between groups seeking to advocate for people with disabilities, and groups advocating on behalf of those who provide care for them.
Though it is an idea that is hard to grasp, what is good for the carers may not be good for their sons and daughters.
… To longtime disability right advocates, many who are parents of disabled children, the newcomers represent a backlash. They threaten to shift focus from the rights of people with disabilities to the interests of carers. “In the battle to focus on the rights of people with disabilities, we’ve lost 30 years of ground,” says Matthew Bowden, co-chief executive of People with Disabilities, an advocacy group that began 26 years ago.
The way newcomers frame the debate offends many longtime disability advocates. They make frequent reference to their lives as “unbearable” and to their children as “burdens”. For example, an angry submission by the National Carers’ Coalition to a Senate inquiry into disability funding last year talks of “families saddled with this burden unaided”, “lifelong suffering”, and “servitude”, and urges the Government to examine the “sham that is the ‘community inclusion’ rhetoric”.
Central to the dispute is the question of long-term housing. A government offer of a $1.8 billion program, limited to those with elderly parents, is at issue. Is it the way forward? Or a return to “mini-institutions,” similar to the old gulags?
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on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 1:07 pm and is filed under advocacy, caregivers, housing, international, parents, politics.
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October 27th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
I just wanted to provide another side to this article. At no stage do carers want to reduce the rights of people with a disability or requiring care. However there are two sides to this equation and we need to also ensure that carers are supported and recognised.
Here in Australia there is no protection of employment based upon being a carer, too many days off can and has meant you lose your job. Carers are forced to sell their homes or face the loss of any government benefit. Carers are also desperate about the lack of future options for them and the people they care for.
This is not an us and them argument, it’s about supporting both sides. A person with a disability with no rights has an impact on carers, a carer with no rights impacts directly upon the person they care for.