Matters of Interest

Highgate Park Disability Services

The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (15:23): I would like to share the words of two young women from Whyalla, both of whom have a disability: muscular dystrophy. The daily trials and tribulations of the Westerman twins trying to access basic services, as is their human right, is well known to both my office and the Minister for Disabilities.

Recently, the Westermans came to Adelaide for assessment appointments. They stayed at Highgate Park. Despite repeated assurances from Disability SA, what occurred during their stay there was unacceptable. My office wrote to the minister about this issue and the response was, in turn, totally unacceptable. The Westerman sisters feel that the minister is not facing up to the realities of what has occurred in this situation nor the inadequate service being provided at Highgate Park. So, in light of the poor response to date, I will raise their questions in this forum:

Why did no Highgate Park workers know what type of care we needed? Why did they assume we had a cognitive disability and ask us if we were anorexic? Why did none of the equipment suit our needs? The toilet chair seating was for males and our legs fell through the gap at the front of the seat. The seating was not padded…we are very bony due to having no muscle, so it hurt to sit on the toilet. We were told by Disabilities SA that Highgate had the same equipment we currently use. Not true. The mattress on the bed was hard and left us with pressure sores.

Being on the toilet covered with a sheet and wheeled through the corridors like this is not acceptable. We were informed that some clients can ram you in their chairs, plus at this time we were still using the male seat. We lean on our arms, so we balance, so one small knock, or even moving the seat too fast, will make us fall and end up on the floor. Would you, as someone who can walk and do what you want when you want, go to the toilet in the middle of a busy shopping centre with only a curtain as a privacy screen where someone can walk in at any time, and go naked from A to B?

A simple toilet shift often takes an hour for both of us—at Highgate Park this took three hours. How is that possible when we were told the staff at Highgate Park are highly trained? This wasn't just a one-off. Can you understand how stressful and hurtful it was to go through this every day? We had to wait for ninety minutes to get out of bed because by the time the support workers got ready they left again..Meanwhile, we didn’t eat breakfast because we were still waiting to get up. It was 10:15 when we were in our chairs and eating breakfast. Usually we’d be up and ready by 8am.

At home we go to the toilet five to six times a day, at Highgate, it was reduced to twice because they did not have enough staff rostered on. Staff refused to toilet us—they would literally hide, leave half way through a shift, bicker like we weren’t there, swap workers during a shift, leaving us to re-teach the new workers what to do. This was not just frustrating but unsafe. We got treated like we were a burden. Cyanne was left in her room, as her chair was broken, and no-one was informed during shift change. She never got to leave her room—only once during her stay.

Prior to the visit we had asked about bringing valuable belongings and if we should name clothes. They said we could take valuables because it was very unlikely that anything would be stolen. And that naming our clothes was optional. It was a different story once we were at Highgate. I was told to lock up all my valuables because they do go missing, and that putting names on our clothes wasn’t good enough because they too would disappear as the washing is done all together. So we kept our dirty clothes in our room in a box for it to be washed separately as to everyone else.

These are not my words. These are quotes from correspondence sent to me by Zia and Cyanne Westerman who have given me permission to name them in the chamber today. I do so to raise awareness, not only that the services provided to them during their stay at Highgate were inadequate, but that the minister's response clearly shows that he does not understand the true ramifications of the issues.

I ask everyone here today to imagine what it would be like to be a young woman in this situation in which Zia and Cyanne Westerman found themselves during their stay at Highgate Park. I am hoping for a more adequate response from the minister that will take into account the true ramifications of what the Westermans were told versus what actually happened to them during their stay at Highgate Park.