this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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Families ‘hung out to dry’ by new restrictions on disability support (www.thepress.co.nz)
submitted 8 months ago by deadbeef79000 to c/newzealand
18 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

So, our government's "crack down on beneficiaries" also includes disabled children.

Apparently disabled people are, what? Leaches sucking the life out of the economy or something?

How long until disabled people have to "work" for their support? Or perhaps we should just put them on a train and take them to a "work camp"?

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[–] liv 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

What gets me is there are people like you who are just pushed too far and can't do it. They relinquish their child to state care. And that costs the govt millions of dollars more than just funding parents and caregivers.

Unpaid caregivers save the govt billions of dollars, why is it trying so hard to make their lives worse?

[–] deadbeef 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That is a great point. Even if you look at it from a total psychopath accountant's point of view, chucking a few scraps at the parents to keep them from totally giving up is a tiny fraction of the cost of the alternatives.

When our child was diagnosed the fairly bulky information pack that the DHB gave us had this depressing sheet at the start with a foreword that said you need to rethink any goals you might have had for your child. In the same section there was something to the effect that more than half of marriages where a child has this diagnosis end in divorce.

I was freaking amazed they would put that in writing ( even if it is true! ). I told my partner that she would be best to skip the start and look at the rest of the information.

[–] liv 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

chucking a few scraps at the parents to keep them from totally giving up is a tiny fraction of the cost of the alternatives.

Especially when you consider a great many of them are parents looking after high-needs adult children or spouses looking after adults. I know some of these and it's really a mammoth task. The disability care we have now is much cheaper than institutionalising those being cared for.

This is what scares me about this govt, it's not just being cold "psycho accountant" it's more like a psycho who failed accounting and just wants to break things and hurt people.