Skip to main content

International Day of People with Disabilities (Caring Obituary)

International Day of People with Disabilities is a day to reflect on the lives of those living with disabilities.

Like everyone else in the community there are people with disabilities who are successful athletes, artists, business owners, and university professors. We also have our share of trials.

As a person with a disability I do not see myself as better or worse than anyone else in the community.

While the International Day of People with Disabilities is a great opportunity to highlight the wonderful things that people with disabilities are capable of, I also see it as an opportunity to highlight areas where there is much work to be done towards equality for all people.

In September this year I was deeply affected by Greens Senator Jordan Steele-John's speech in the Senate where he read out a list of those people with disabilities who have died in care. Since that day I have not been able to stop thinking that we need to do more. I hope the following poem that I have penned will help people use this International Day of People with Disability to reflect on our triumphs but also the need to dig deep and make things better.


Caring Obituary

Day after day people with disabilities cannot live without carers but when do we notice the death obituary?
Every year we lay to rest people with disabilities but when will we recognise Care is in an unmarked grave next to them in the cemetery? 
Why does it take a senator in a wheelchair to read out an honour roll for us to see the people with disabilities who should be there?
How many have to grieve before the politicians will believe?

At four, I knew my first person in a wheelchair who died; when I got home I began to cry and said "Mummy, will I?"
When I was fourteen, I knew a girl who was only thirteen when she began to choke and when carers brought her breakfast in the morning she never awoke. 
At twenty-six I had been to fifty funeral masses when I stopped to count. 
Now at thirty-six the number does still mount. 

Many people with disabilities can only tell us what they want to say when they cry but why do we only hear it after they die? 
It is everyone's duty to care so people with disabilities do not place blame, it is our burden to share.
It is time to focus less on wealth and pay more attention to people with disabilities' health. 
So now let's take notice and do not whisper about death, no more time to be contrary because we cannot afford to be reading Care's obituary.

International Day of People with Disability - CVI 2018

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Defend Our NDIS

 Defend our NDIS; people have had enough of cuts and changes to the NDIS. The Every Australian Counts campaign has organised a national day of action and events across Australia to take place on 28th of April.  I have been involved in the NDIS from the initial trial phase through to today. People may remember that I was involved in an advertising campaign spruiking the benefits to come once the scheme was up and running.  ‘You’re in charge! Yes we are, aren’t we!’ For awhile this was the truth for participants like myself. I have been very lucky and received 90 percent of what I need from NDIS.  The question is would I have received the same benefits if I was not a skilled disability advocate?  People with disabilities want the original version of the scheme that was promised without having to fight for a reasonable request. It would be a more efficient scheme if the government put the millions of dollars in legal fees into service delivery instead.  According to the Australian Service
3 comments
Read more

A Vision for an Inclusive Australia (DRC Final Report)

 The final revised version of the Disability Royal Commission (DRC) into violence, abuse, neglect, and exploitation was published on 2 November 2023.  The Royal Commission ran for four years with hundreds of people with disabilities testifying at hearings and thousands more supplying the Commission with written submissions.  The final report titled Our Vision for An Inclusive Australia  made 222 recommendations to improve laws, policies, structures, and practices to ensure a more inclusive and just society. That supports the independence of people with disabilities and their right to live a life free from violence, abuse, neglect, and exploitation.  The report covers 12 volumes ranging from:  Voices of People with Disability  About the Royal Commission Nature and Extent of Violence, Abuse, and Exploitation Realising the Human Rights of People with Disability  Governing for Inclusion Inclusive Education, Employment, and Housing Enabling Autonomy and Access Criminal Justice and People wi
Post a Comment
Read more

Throw Out The Label Maker

Through a lot of self-refection over the last few weeks I’ve come to believe it’s time to throw out the label maker before all the labels cover up our humanity. I use to think labels were cool, signs of what we’re meant to be, until those words turned to weapons pointed at me. Spastic, special disabled even retard these are the labels that at one time or another made my life hell. Cousin, aunty uncle, mother, father; where I come in the family tree the energy I share with the world  is unique and impossible for a label to  define. Chink , abo, wog and rag head; I don’t know why we can’t just see each other as people? Gorgeous, sexy, ugly, disgusting, fat and skinny but I want to know why I’ve never seen a picture of a guy or girl in a wheelchair with the caption Heartthrob. We need to recognise all beauty. Success, failure, dumb or genius, normal to eccentric these days all labels do is turn society into us and them. Christian, Muslim, Buddhist are all labels
2 comments
Read more