Across the country, there are around 2.6 million Australians helping to care for a loved one with a disability. As our population ages, the number of carers is only set to increase.

“People with disabilities are no longer a tiny, voiceless minority,” says journalist and carer Sue O’Reilly, who helped start a national campaign, Mad As Hell (australiansmadashell.com.au), to demand better disability services.

“There are now 1.5 million people in Australia with a severe or profound disability – that’s the population of Perth. Half a million people are the primary carers of a person with a disability, and that’s the population of Tasmania.”

More than 2 million more are secondary carers, who share the sometimes unimaginable load of looking after a child or adult who cannot fend for themselves.

“Politicians need to remember that people who are severely disabled can still vote, and so can the rest of us,” Sue says.

Sue, whose son Shane suffered severe brain damage after acquiring a severe staphylococcus infection in a hospital neonatal unit soon after birth, and whose husband died of cancer three years ago, knows that tragedy can happen to any of us, at any time.

But compared to the UK, for example, Australia is almost Third World in its treatment of disabled citizens, says Sue. “Imagine how people would react if public hospitals throughout the country were so severely underfunded, they could only admit one in five people seeking treatment?

“Imagine if this one patient in five was selected by some form of random, lottery-type ballot, and if hospitals announced that because of funding shortfalls, they could only treat people who had broken a leg or an arm if it was the right leg or arm, but not the left?

“Imagine if cancer patients were refused chemotherapy or radiotherapy? All these scenarios seem ludicrous, yet this sort of rationing and crisis-driven response is exactly what’s happening in the disability sector.”

Sue says the only solution is to introduce a no-fault disability insurance scheme – which means average Aussies would be charged a levy, just like the Medicare levy, of about $10 a week to pay for a vast improvement in disability support services.

This proposal is currently being considered by the Federal Government.

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Send in your contact details, story (no longer than 300 words) and photos to wd@womansday.com.au.

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