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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-10-15 Daily Xml
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BRAIN INJURY REHABILITATION COMMUNITY AND HOME SERVICE

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (15:38): In noting Mental Health Week last week, I got talking to a friend of mine who is undergoing rehabilitation (she has an acquired brain injury after having a stroke) and then another friend of mine who is a carer for her 20-something son, again with an acquired brain injury from a car accident.

I am advised that there is one brain injury rehabilitation service in South Australia, and it is SA Health's Brain Injury Rehabilitation Community and Home service (known as BIRCH). It is for people who suffer a brain injury, perhaps from an aneurism or a car accident. What happens is that they gradually move through the inpatient and outpatient services provided by BIRCH. BIRCH also provides an integrated service of physiotherapy, psychology, speech therapy, occupational therapy, social work, neuropsychiatry and rehabilitation clinical services because, after a brain injury, all these areas may be needed for rehabilitation. The BIRCH team, as I understand it, talk to each other and they coordinate these services, which are delivered at home or at the centre at Felixstow.

I have been shown a draft proposal that would see BIRCH staff providing direct care to people with a brain injury one day a week, compared with five days a week at the moment. There are a couple of documents floating around—the Central Adelaide Local Health Network's 'Planning for excellence: proposed way forward' and also 'Report on community and stakeholder consultation, Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre'—and they are both dated September 2013.

In talking to people who have a brain injury, or their carers, it has been emphasised to me that it is important to understand the practical implications of brain injury such as: after a brain injury everything is very confusing—you do not know what has happened, what is happening now, or why you are in hospital. You can become tired very quickly because that part of the brain that is not damaged is working so hard to do everything. It is hard to concentrate for very long. You can only absorb new information in short, small segments, and often you cannot remember much of what anybody says to you.

It was particularly emphasised to me that you lose your driving licence; your sleep is often very disturbed—either you sleep all the time or you hardly sleep at all—and you do not understand simple daily tasks. I am told that these issues are quite common for people who have brain injuries or know people with brain injuries.

On top of that, they are also dealing with specific difficulties such as arms and legs that do not work anymore; they may have aphasia and are unable to read or write; they do not seem to understand anything that they say or what people say to them; they get very angry quickly and are unable to calm down; they also get used to being dependent on other people for everything including personal care; they do not understand the radio or TV; and the list goes on.

As I said, these are just some of the things that have been raised with me. I think it is particularly important that we make sure that we advance the services that are available to support people with a brain injury. Quite often people say that having a brain injury means that you are in a fog and it is really hard to work out what is going on.

There is rehabilitation available and there have been many successes which BIRCH can claim with the things that are being provided to them. From what I have heard, it is also important that services for people with a brain injury are coordinated and that it is not made more difficult for people with that injury or their carers to have to negotiate how to access services and how to move from service to service.

Obviously, the home care service is an excellent one, but there is also a need to see different professionals associated with that injury. I hope that the service continues in the way it is at the moment unless, of course, there are a lot more resources put into the area and it is improved. What people say to me at the moment is that they like the service they have now, and they want to make sure it is more readily available.

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