DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY CLINIC, ROYAL RYDE REHABILITATION CENTRE
Page: 21648
The Hon. JOHN RYAN [6.20 p.m.]: I raise concerns being experienced by the New South Wales Developmental Disability Clinic, which is situated on the campus of the Royal Ryde Rehabilitation Centre. The health unit was established with the assistance of the Centre for Developmental Disability Studies at the University of Sydney and was originally the result of work carried out by Dr Helen Beange, who was awarded an Order of Australia for her work for people with disabilities. She is now retired, but excellent physicians such as Dr Jane Law, a general practitioner from Sydney's eastern suburbs, now carry on her work.
This clinic absolutely operates on a shoestring and has only four staff—a receptionist-nurse and three part-time doctors—but its work is incredible. The clinic identifies, studies and addresses the complex medical needs of many people with disabilities. It recognises that people with disabilities often have multiple complex medical requirements that often need to be treated holistically. Many of these medical needs are made all the more complex by the social settings in which the person with the disability lives. For example, a person with intellectual disability may also suffer from obesity and depression. He or she may well be living with ageing carers who themselves have complex medical needs and suffer from clinical depression. The clinic is extremely popular, as evidenced by its hundreds of clients. The waiting time to gain access to the clinic is sometimes up to a year, but commonly about six months. Clients treated by the clinic are given a thorough evaluation and examined for periods of up to two hours. Advice is then given to their carers, local general practitioners and other allied specialists to ensure that the medical regimes administered to them are appropriate and well co-ordinated.
This incredible clinic, which does wonderful work, has requested a grant of $250,000 from the Government, either from the Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care or the Department of Health. The staff would like to develop it to become a centre of excellence, employing the services of general practitioners and other allied specialists such as psychologists, dieticians and speech pathologists. One would have thought that the decision to fund a clinic such as this would be simple. The related service, the Centre for Developmental Disability Studies associated with the University of Sydney, operates on a shoestring also and it maybe the only academic unit in the State, and possibly the country, that studies the medical needs of people with disabilities.
These two services have sought what one might regard as fairly modest funding from the Government, but both departments have refused to grant them the $250,000 they have requested. They also sought $90,000 for another program to enable them to secure basic secretarial services because the booking procedures for their clients require considerable resources and the funding would also give them access to a few allied specialists. Again, the Government refused. As Dr Law explained, the State Government does not want to fund specialist clinics like this because it would prefer to place the care of developmentally disabled adults into the hands of general practitioners and shift the cost back to the Federal Government. This is another example, similar to the Life Start Program, to which I drew attention during question time today, of how the Government has its priorities wrong.
Organisations that do important work for vulnerable people are left wanting because the Government wastes enormous amounts of public money. It has nothing to do with misallocation of GST, about which the Government today initiated a $400,000 political campaign. One-quarter of that amount would allow the centre to continue its work, and half that sum would expand and improve the centre. The work undertaken by the clinic is infinitely better than anything that could be achieved by today's campaign launch. That funding would have greatly assisted families who care for people with disabilities and have contributed immensely to their health and wellbeing. But the Government has obviously lost its way; it no longer cares. It prefers to fund spin rather than substance, and I am sure all members find that utterly regrettable.