Dear Human Services,
Who are you?
Define Human Services:
“ Human Services are those jobs which provide a Service to Society, particularly in times of crisis. Human Services are designed to help people navigate through crisis or chronic situations where the person feels they need external help and guidance to move forward with their life and rediscover their personal power and self-sufficiency. Sometimes the situation the person needs help with is external, such as the loss of a job or income, the need for food or housing or for help getting out of a dangerous situation. For other people the difficulty they are facing is an internal challenge such as depression, a physical ailment or disability or other mental or physical health crisis.
HISTORY
Since I became sick in 2013 I developed pain throughout my body originating in my right hip. My income dropped from $1000pw after tax to $265. I have never been sick so I was not aware of what was ahead. While I have been trying to claim statutory workcover for work place injuries the Queensland Government created conditions that were not there, or true, and consequently rejected my claim. As a result I not only became sicker, my son and I moved 5 times over 18 months and been through 16 legal confrontations half of which were through the court! My son failed to maintain his momentum in his final year of school and onwards and has failed. We now live in abject poverty. Then you, Human Services proceeded to do the same with my disability claim which has been lodged twice over three years.
You’ve made every process that you advertise to help people adversarial and unreachable. You have consistently moved the goal post! Then you generated a false work capacity assessment leaving any access to medical assistance to improve my families situation out of reach. Consequently my health has hit rock bottom due to severe ongoing now chronic, illnesses and the sale of our property to make ends meet has meant that the home I had been building for my son and our future has all but gone.
Despite the Queensland government knowing my circumstances rather then assist me it has been easier and more profitable for them to diminish my needs and continue to insist that I can walk fine, that I do not suffer from the chronic conditions diagnosed and that I am in good health and can maintain a 15 hour working week. Off course none of this is true. The system is adversarial however, and having reached severe depression and the pit of despondency of course I’m not well enough to defend my self and after 3 years of struggling to do this I’ve not succeeded. My symptoms are not improving and the continual stress imposed by a lazy, greedy government is a profound detriment to our future and my life span.
The Queensland government has insisted on more information even though I know this is an absolute waste of time and a bit like arguing with an idiot. Instead of smartening their game they apply ongoing accusation and intimidation. So on top of my horrid medical circumstance I am left to deal with the Queenland law which at best is subjective.
How do I get better on $265pw? It isn’t possible. How do I plan for a future while feeling so sick? In Queensland it isn’t an option. I have no future in this backward thinking state. Neither can I move to get access to better medical support. So here my son and I are with no future and no present and yet we are still expected to meet workplace criterion as if living in a fantasy world.
Curiously, just down the road the government is paying kids and men a minimum of $1750 per fortnight just to train and study under the label “Defence Force”. It is hard to comprehend why the government feels no justification in overpaying a “driving specialist” while denying help to a citizen who had built her own life from nothing. I had an unfortunate turn of events with the government deciding to unjustifiably take my job off me and support corrupt business practices. I fell ill and without the support I was entitled to I have regressed so far that the idea of resuming my life independently has been forcibly taken from me.
I’ve taken everyone’s advice and nothing is working. Centerlink, disability job networks, social workers, counsellors, doctors and specialists- and none of these so called health care professionals has been able to help us..they are mainly intimidated by your system is the vibe I picked up time and time again over three years!!!. A few months ago, on advice, I attempted to reconnect with society and volunteer at the local community centre. For three hours a week I was able to do something positive and feel some sense of self worth. It was difficult and physically uncomfortable however it was, I thought, in aid of helping out people less fortunate then us..lol.. Unfortunately a month or so later I was ‘resigned’ from volunteering. I had no idea why but according to some of the health care providers listed above it was a case of one 67+ old woman feeling threatened that I would absorb a “paid” position…I don’t know…hers? I was unaware that the government provides payments to volunteers and clearly rocked that woman’s boat when I bounced in with open optimism and I was again, so simply dumped. Aside from the weeks I had worked there, the contribution I had made to update some of their material, the blue card I received, the name tag and contact registry I was placed on- I received an email from them telling me simply that my application to volunteer has been rejected. This is what fear, corruption and poor management are able to create in the life of an Australian citizen in order to protect an aging brexit expat who was temporarily acting as president while the president was away. So while this goes on I have no hope in trying to elevate my health on my own because the result of my efforts sends me back further then I was before I tried.
You have refused to help me and led my down quite a few garden paths, and helping myself has proved volatile, so I would like someone from the government department of human services to be accountable and explain what is going on so that I can be removed from any implication that my families circumstance has been my doing. I really draw the line at accountability and while I am fully aware that less educated people will read this and take on that tall poppy stance of ‘how dare this person feel above us’ it is true my bar is very high but that’s no excuse for the very low one you celebrate.
I was well before I experienced the QLD thing and now I am very sick. The mass assumptions and subjectivity that take the place of an educated and civilised process works directly against health and wellbeing not to mention contemporary thinking. Taking short cuts, and greed never led to anything good and while the rest of Australia is keen to lift its game and is doing so, QLD is basically 20 years behind the times and seemingly proud of it.
Ignorant bliss I think it’s called. I hope you can forgive my frustration but for three years I have been living in chronic mental and physical pain while receiving the run around from your government while watching both my sons life and mine be suffocated. Again, I am certain that is called psychological slavery. I cannot even afford to move my family out of QLD. So, good on ya for making everything you touch turn to crap.
IN THE MOMENT
Recently, human services removed my sons $100 disability support payment because he turned 22. They did this before, when he turned 16. They didn’t reinstate it at the time he turned 16, instead they waited 4 years and reinstated it when he turned 20. No idea why but he will be withdrawing from study now that we simply can’t afford it. So thank you for that as well. Even though you don’t consider my son a dependent you have removed his eligibility for rent assistance. Even though you don’t consider I am sick you won’t acknowledge that my son has been a carer as well. Even though you pay kids his age $1750+ per fortnight you have struggled to justify why you should support a student with learning difficulties and the last time we struggled with this you disconnected him from any payment at all because you did not consider his course of study full time. Again you walked us down the garden path and weeks of mess and stress from you with no youth allowance was reversed without even an apology. What I then discovered is that you consider someone studying part-time fully compliant with full time study assistance if what they are studying is Law. Is that discrimination? More importantly why did you think it was ok to hurt my sons stability so directly but not those studying law part time?
Do you remember the great Australian ugliness? Do you remember the norms walking around with their disgusting pot bellies? Are you aware that the rest of the country has evolved for the better? Will QLD become more futile as the population heads towards an ageing demographic and general vulnerability? Is it because we are so vulnerable that you can get away with it? Would you treat your own family that way?
Probably not if your own family is back in Britain, or the Netherlands who interestingly favour raising children over financing people in uniforms.
My son was working for ten months while trying to wrap his brain around an online course that took money but failed to follow thru. After the end of financial year his employer decided to contract a professional cleaner. Well, they haven’t fired my son pretending that he will move into stocking shelves or other, but they haven’t called him either. So that’s the business world you endorse and as a result my son will literally pay for the employers whim. Aside from unprofessional it’s unbelievable that you will feel comfortable holding my son accountable for actions you endorse. Because he is vulnerable and has no voice? Do you know anything about youth depression? Will you be accountable?
IN THE FUTURE
Well there isn’t much of one. Oh yeah- you’ve changed the cost of my sons initial course from $1500 to $6500 essentially removing him from his comfort zone. You then slap a $750 unpaid fee on him for services not rendered. Despite my attempts to have that default in my name because I paid the fees you support Tafes action to keep the fault in my sons name so he now has a credit default. When that happened, when greed became so much more imperative then my sons education, alarm bells went up…again. And ever since, in so many other ways.
You must be accountable for something given you define yourselves as “human services”.
Define Human Services:
“ Human Services are those jobs which provide a Service to Society, particularly in times of crisis. Human Services are designed to help people navigate through crisis or chronic situations where the person feels they need external help and guidance to move forward with their life and rediscover their personal power and self-sufficiency. Sometimes the situation the person needs help with is external, such as the loss of a job or income, the need for food or housing or for help getting out of a dangerous situation. For other people the difficulty they are facing is an internal challenge such as depression, a physical ailment or disability or other mental or physical health crisis.”