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Source: ABC News Online Opinion: Email letters We should celebrate acceptance and tolerance
The idea posited about people with disabilities being neglected really hit me. My six-year-old son has apsergers syndrome, and he was lucky to attend an SEDU, Special Education Development Unit where he received understanding. I spoke with many parents whose children had more profound disabilities within the constellation of disabilities blithely ascribed to autism. They were tired people, they were lonely and they didn't see the future in terms that were positive. I believe there will be many people who suffer from neurological dysfunctions that will find it hard to find a place in the world. The SEDU taught me understanding that was based on acceptance of people for what they were. I'm not cynical but I think that social messages based on acceptance of diversity need to be foregrounded. There are more and more people out there who can't communicate and need active encouragement and support to function. Is the world too selfish to give that support? I don't think so, but instead of celebrating achievement we should celebrate acceptance and tolerance. I do not want to imagine my son as a lonely man walking the streets of a cold place. Surely understanding of diversity is as important as celebrating the acquisition of an investment property with the joys of negative gearing. I hope this issue will be important to the community. Peter Jensen - Sunnybank Hills, Qld Undervalued and neglected
In a society where it has become imperative to have the best - the best house, best career, best partner and best baby - it is no surprise any person with a disability is undervalued and neglected in terms of social support other than what family can provide. Furthermore, many of the services provided are little more than warehousing - it is a nightmare of a situation for any aging parent. - Fiona Place - Double Bay, NSW
Rescue for carers needed
My grandmother is the sole carer of my grandfather who has dementia and partial blindness and hearing impairment for 10 years. It has been suggested by some agencies that my grandmother ask my mother to help with his care, despite the fact my mother needs to work to support herself as do I. Funding cutbacks, more red tape or both mean a loss of freedom and extra stress for a woman who is 80 years of age. The only way my grandfather will get placement in a nursing home at the moment will be if my grandmother dies or she chooses to divorce him, meaning she will then become dependent on financial support from her daughter. We all love each other and would do what we can, but it's not practical for any of us to give up work in order to help out, despite what some agencies want us to do. Our family is in a lifeboat that is crowded with other families in the same situation and there is no rescue vessel in sight. - Angela Bostock - Alexandra Hills, Qld
People with disabilities will be abandoned
Carers of people with disabilities have every right to expect the Federal Government will use population based benchmarks when looking at support for the disabled and their carers in the next round of discussions on the CSTDA. The recent announcement of Chris Pyne that the Federal Government is funding another 32,000 aged care beds over the next three years must be lauded, but is a joke when there are not even this amount of old beds nationally for the profoundly disabled under 65 years of age, let alone new beds. In the next 10 years, the rate of abandonment of people with a disability will skyrocket as families no longer cope with the neglect. Abandonment will be seen as the only option available to families who have cared unsupported for decades, because quite simply, abandonment has become the only thing government reacts to. Justice demands the benchmark funding of disability services in parity with aged care services and demands a federal/state equal division of the costs, if the agreement is to be renewed. Federal Minister Mal Brough has stated that he will not agree to a single dollar of increased funding for unmet needs. If this is the Federal Government's attitude, carers have decided they are given no choice but to target every marginal Government seat in the coming federal election starting with Mr Howard's seat of Bennelong, along with other key marginal NSW seats such as Wentworth, Dobell, Greenway and Eden Monaro. Victorian carers are intending to do likewise. - Nell Brown - Hornsby, NSW
Carers neglected
For more than 30 years policy has neglected to plan for the time when parents and families caring for a family member who cannot care for themselves can no longer care because they are just too old or they die.
There has been a breach of trust or a perversion of the social contract which was essentially and historically regarded as being one which looked after those of our society who have no means whereby to speak for or care for themselves. In fact the contract has been shredded. So distant are our politicians from the reality that most of their constituents live that they cannot actually represent them. This issue affects 2.5 million Australian families which are part of the community. They are our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and neighbours. It is trite to say this is a single issue - but as an issue it is the single issue that every government has made a non-issue. The alarm bells have been ringing loudly for decades but policy-makers have been hearing but not listening. Is the idea of our being a rich, mature and benevolent democracy merely a fiction? - Mary Lou Carter - Sydney, NSW
Buck passing
I have a 32-year-old disabled daughter and this buck passing on all levels of government has been going on for as long as I can remember.
These politicians have to stop playing with these vulnerable peoples' lives and give them the opportunity to lead a fulfilled life. - Gayl Foy - Banora Point, NSW
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