What kind of economically inefficient, anti-community standards political/bureaucratic nonsense is this?
It takes me back to a job that I had, very briefly, on this day 34 years ago – that of Bank Clerk in the Department of Social Security in Perth, just before the Department of Community Services was spun out of it.
One of the things that I did, at a very junior level, was to help people who were having problems with Handicapped Childs’ Allowance (these were pre ‘disability’ lingo time by and large). HCA payments came in two levels depending on the assessed degree of disability, through the passage of time I can’t remember what they were called.
I was rung up by a very distraught woman whose pre-school daughter had a virulent form of cancer with very low survival rates. She said that the issue she wanted to raise might seem pretty minor in the scheme of things but it was so stupid and unjust it was really bugging her and stopping her focusing on more important things at times.
After first being diagnosed, one of her daughter’s legs was amputated below the knee. Unsurprisingly, she was medically assessed as qualifying for the higher level of HCA payment.
Her cancer had gone, or appeared to go into remission for some months but then returned. Her leg was then amputated above the knee. Stupidity Number 1: because of the “changed circumstances” the little girl was required to be re-assessed for HCA “eligibility”. (Really? There was no higher level to be moved to.)
Grosser Stupidity Number 2 – after the second amputation she was then assessed as having a lesser disability than previously and thus her level of HCA payment had been reduced. In discussion we tried to think our way through this, and all we could think of was maybe she was now at less risk of tripping over her left knee – utter bollocks can lead to such dark humour as a defence mechanism.
I did what little I could and sent a note up the line to try to help her (and someone might have mentioned get onto your local MP and the Minister’s Office – ring them up and follow up by mail if you can).
I was not in the job a few weeks later but on my final day, I tried to ring the woman up to see if she had got anywhere. She thought that she had achieved a review of the situation but by then her daughter’s condition had got much worse.
I think of this from time to time but it came roaring back when I opened my inbox this morning .
aviewfromhoppers 