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Young
People in Care.
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10 Sep 2004
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Young People
in Care
includes those suffering among other things, Huntington's Disease,
Acquired Brain Injury, Mental Illness and the problems caused by drug
and alcohol abuse.
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Huntington's
Disease
is
a devastating, degenerative brain disorder for which
there is, at present, no effective treatment or cure. HD slowly
diminishes
the affected individual's ability to walk, think, talk and reason.
Eventually,
the person with HD becomes totally dependent upon others for his or her
care.
Huntington's Disease profoundly affects the lives of entire families:
emotionally,
socially and economically.
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YPIC
Young
People in Care.
Please
Help Them
Receive The Care They Deserve.
Write to your Local Member of
Parliament, Local and National Newspapers and talk about it on talk
back radio.
The aim of this site is to
increase
awareness of the
need for proper care facilities for Young People requiring care. It
is not right that Aged Care facilities are used to care for young
Australians and it's not fair to the aged population as it reduces
the number of beds available to them. There is a glaring care vacuum
for Young People who require care at a level below that provided in
the Aged Care facilities. It is the need for care facilities for this
group that are the focus of this site. The existing Health Care
arrangements for this group are quite
bizarre and ineffective.
Although my personal interest is
for
the provision of proper care
facilities for Huntington's Disease sufferers, other needs have also
been
highlighted. There are young People suffering Huntington's Disease,
Acquired Brain Injury, Mental Illness and many other afflictions who
are not currently receiving proper care.
I am
focusing on
Queensland as that is where I reside although the problem appears to
be Nationwide. I encourage others to utilize
anything on this site to further efforts to obtain proper
care facilities for Young People. If you have your own web site please put
a link on
it to this site. Publicity and the potential to influence
Electoral vote counts are the primary means
for initiating change in Australia so please do your bit to help to
increase the pressure on our Politicians.
In
Queensland for example we have Level 3 Hostel Accommodation
facilities being accredited to provide care for Young People. These
Facilities are not Health Care
Facilities and are being accredited by the Office of Fair Trading.
That Office comes under the Department
of Tourism, Fair Trading and Wine Industry Development. This is not a Ripleys
believe it or not
story, it is a fact. To make it easier for you to find the
Accommodation Accreditation information Click
Here.
No doubt there was a
need to improve Hostel
Accommodation but that must not be allowed to camouflage this serious
gap in the Health Care system. Health Care is Health Care and not an
issue for management by the Department
of Tourism, Fair Trading and Wine Industry Development. When
the burden of compliance results in the closure of these unfunded
Level 3 Hostel Accommodation Care Facilities what happens then ?
Should unfunded Care Facilities be forced to close there is nowhere
for these people to go to be looked after.
For a brief insight into
Huntington's Disease Click Here.
This is unquestionably a serious illness that has complex care needs
yet there are no Health Care facilities suitable to meet these needs.
The complex needs of Young People are many and arise from many
different causes. The Human
Rights Commission has recently
identified the need
for
improved care for those suffering both Mental Illness and drug
addiction. In the case of Huntington's Disease it can be exactly as
described by the Commissioner with Huntingtons Disease on top of
both. I strongly suspect that Pre-symptomatic Huntingtons Disease
sufferers are at far greater risk of falling into the category
described by the Human Rights Commission. Click
Here
for an insight into this aspect.
The current Health Care
System
in
Australia virtually
abandons Young People with multiple problems and it's not unusual for
them to be treated as criminals. These people and/or their advocates
can be forced to go to extraordinary lengths to obtain care and
fair treatment. Should a sufferer have a
bad turn in an Accommodation Facility it is not uncommon for the
sufferer to be forcibly removed by Police. They are not criminals and
had they been receiving properly managed professional Health Care and
monitoring, these incidents would most likely not happen in the first
place.
We Australians express concern
about
the mistreatment
of Iraqi prisoners yet we are mistreating our
Young People who are
sick and injured. This is largely ignored by Australians because we
either don't know about it or simply don't care. Please speak up now
about the mistreatment of our sick and injured Young People. Write to
your Local Member, write to the Newspapers and do anything else you
can think of to increase public awareness of the cruel way we are
treating our sick and injured Young People.
To contact the author of
this site click Here |
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Please
Help Them Receive The Care
They Deserve. 
