Woody the Safety Bloke… So what is the NDIS and why is it good??
Good day everyone, Woody here, I wanted to something a little bit different this week. I want to take a couple of minutes to get a little bit political, now don’t switch off before you hear what I have to say. I want to talk a little bit about the NDIS, now I reckon a lot of you are sitting there going, what the hell is he talking about and you know I’ve got to be honest with ya. I probably would have been the same if I didn’t have to get around in a wheelchair.
Now just for those of you who don’t know, the NDIS is the National Disability Insurance Scheme so pretty much it’s a government initiative, it was introduced I think by the labor government about four years ago and it’s slowly been rolled out around the country. Now what it’s designed to do is to allow people with a disability whether it be in a wheelchair, any physical intellectual or any type of disability to live a more active, fulfilling, participate more in general life.
I mean you got no idea how much living with a disability costs and sure you got the obvious costs, you’ve got equipment, wheelchairs, any medical equipment that someone with a disability might need but you also have costs such as carers, some people that don’t have family support they require other people to care for them, house modifications, car modifications, the list is just huge.
I want to give you a little example of how the NDIS is meant to save money and almost sustain itself. I mean a lot of people with a spinal cord injury have to use a catheter, I apologize in advance here but a catheter is a tube you stick up the eye of your penis or in your vagina, if you’re a female, into your bladder to allow you to empty your bladder.
Now a catheter, a disposable catheter costs, I don’t know roughly a dollar to a dollar fifty. Now some people just don’t have access to be able to use a different catheter every time they go to the toilet, so what happens is they use the same catheter over and over and over again. Now this causes complications, urinary tract infections which can then lead to bladder infections and also kidney infections.
Now just think about this for a second, the NDIS is supposed to allow someone to purchase the equipment that they need, say for instance a supply of catheters that will do them for a month, three months, 12 months on an ongoing basis. Now the cost of that as opposed to having to use the same catheter again and getting a kidney infection and ending up in hospital for a month.
Now the hospital treatment and the doctors’ fees are probably 10, 15 times the amount that it’s going to cost to supply that person with the equipment that they need to go to the toilet, using a clean catheter each time so that’s just a really simple example but I guess the reason I’m sharing this with you is that a lot of people out there that don’t know someone with a disability.
Well they don’t have someone with a disability in their family or their circle of friends, they’ve got no idea what the NDIS is all about and I get a little bit erred because lately the politicians have been using the NDIS as a bit of an argy bargy and I got to tell you that’s really getting to a lot of people in my situation.
Look, it’s not a handout, it’s not, you know, a pension or anything like that, it’s a way for someone like myself or even someone that maybe doesn’t have a full-time job and the resources to supply their own equipment the NDIS is a way for them to participate more in life, in the community and just get out there and live as much as they can. So I hope this rambling Woody’s Words has made sense to you.
Try and find out a little bit more for yourself, have a jump on a website and just see what you can find out about the NDIS and hopefully my little explanation, might have made it a little bit simpler for you.
Anyhow, I’m woody, I’ll get back to my proper Woody’s Words next week, make sure you subscribe to my little videos. I’m getting quite a little following now and a lot of people are asking me questions so feel free to whack me an email and I’ll see if I can make a Woody’s Words out of it, Alright everyone, stay safe Australia.
