Radio interview: lack of personal care support for disabled people in hospital
Courtesy 891 ABC Adelaide
Transcript;
Speaker 1:
Breakfast.
Speaker 2:
Weekdays from 6:00 on ABC Radio Adelaide.
David Bevan:
Kelly Vincent, good morning.
Kelly Vincent:
Hi, David. How you doing?
David Bevan:
Good. Kelly, most people know you, but for people who don't, can you just remind us what disabilities do you have?
Kelly Vincent:
So I have cerebral palsy, autism, anxiety, depression, and a couple of other mental health diagnoses.
David Bevan:
Okay. So you are bound to your wheelchair and that was how we first met you all those years ago. But-
Kelly Vincent:
Yes.
David Bevan:
So you've got a few things on your plate.
Kelly Vincent:
Yes. [inaudible 00:00:38]. I like to keep busy. You know that about me.
David Bevan:
You like to keep busy, Kelly.
Ali Clarke:
And Kelly, we thought it was all your incredible abilities and having that lived experience that made you such a great ... and makes you such a great advocate for people who are living with disabilities and that saw you taking a political life
David Bevan:
Yeah. So you did a term in Parliament in the Upper House. But anyway, was it last week? You weren't feeling too good.
Kelly Vincent:
No. I think sometimes the way it is as a society, we only tend to talk about mental health when it's bad, but the thing is, it's always there. And the thing is with mine, sometimes it's really good, sometimes it's really bad, and sometimes it's in the middle. And last week, it was somewhere in the heading toward really bad kind of status. So I thought I'd go in and get some help to try and stop it before it got any more out of hand. Yeah, basically.
David Bevan:
All right. So you think, "It's time to get into the car." And you know yourself well. You said, "It's time to get into the car." So you got to the Royal Adelaide. What happened?
Kelly Vincent:
So my support worker and I made the decision to go to the Royal Adelaide emergency department together. She drove me there, presented, explained my situation as my support worker, because I wasn't really in a position to articulate much myself at that time, and ended up getting admitted to the short stay mental health ward there at the RAH.
Ali Clarke:
What was your care like in that short stay mental health ward.
Kelly Vincent:
Well, Ali, I want to preface this by saying I'm not blaming any one worker. I think there's stuff at the RAH where on the whole did the best that they could a lot of the time. But unfortunately, the situation was that my support agency, for whatever reason, has a policy about not allowing workers to assist clients when they're in a hospital stay, which meant that my support workers couldn't attend to support me in the morning as they usually would with my physical care needs. The mental health staff also felt at the hospital that it wasn't their responsibility to provide me with that physical assistance.
Kelly Vincent:
So basically, I ended up spending three days stuck in bed with no shower, not even brushing my teeth or washing my hands, that kind of stuff. So it was pretty rough in that regard. And obviously when you are feeling pretty down and don't have a great sense of yourself, not having a shower for three days or even being able to get up and go for a walk around the ward or outside for a bit to get a bit of sunshine is probably not going to help.
David Bevan:
And when you say "feeling a bit down," Kelly, you weren't feeling a bit down. You were desperately anxious. That's why you were in the hospital. And you're struggling with all the other things you've got on your plate. And after being three days without so much as brushing your teeth, this is not going to raise your self esteem.
Kelly Vincent:
No, exactly. Yes. So you're right. I wasn't just feeling a bit down. I was heading towards a crisis point and I know that when I am feeling that way, I need to get help because sometimes when I am in that state, and I think a lot of people feel like this, the nursing staff will ask you questions like what helps you when you're in this kind of situation, but you can't remember. You don't remember feeling well. You don't really have any memory of feeling positive. So you do need that assistance to reconstruct your soul, in a way, reconstruct your sense of self. But yeah, certainly not having that physical care for three days won't help you feel good.
Ali Clarke:
And you've written about it in an incredibly eloquent way. In fact, I can tell you, Gail says, "It's just so good to hear Kelly on the radio again. We've really missed you and your wise words. So take care of yourself."
Kelly Vincent:
Thanks, Gail.
Ali Clarke:
And in your words, you said, "The hospital staff didn't feel comfortable helping getting me in and out of bed so I used a bed pan. At one point, I was left on it for about an hour." And then going down, you said, "When I finally did get to shower, it was because my 60-something mum helped me. I felt gross, burdensome, and very much in the too-hard basket."
Kelly Vincent:
That's exactly how it felt, really. You've got one supply agency telling you they can't send your workers to do the usual routine. And you've got the hospital staff obviously feeling that they're not able to provide that support. And I was just, I guess, not able to articulate in the way that I usually would, suggesting alternatives either. Like, for example, I've actually stayed in that ward twice. And the first time, the hospital actually managed to hire their own support workers to assist me at that point, because my usual stuff weren't able to attend because of policy that needs to change. But that didn't happen this time. And they obviously didn't look into getting a lifter to help me in and out of bed and that kind of stuff. So there were alternatives that could've been explored that maybe I didn't articulate. And that's on me to an extent, but also I wasn't really in a position to do that.
David Bevan:
But Kelly, if somebody's feeling like they're going crazy, you don't expect them to able to give advice on how they should be cared for.
Kelly Vincent:
Well, that's right. And I think it's important to say, I didn't feel like I was going crazy. I just knew that I needed help.
David Bevan:
Yeah. You know what I mean.
Kelly Vincent:
I do.
David Bevan:
Yeah. If you feel like you're not coping, that's not the person that you go to say, "Well, can you give me some advice on how we should be treating you?" These are professional people and you've got ... And isn't the issue here, Kelly, that you've got multiple problems?
Kelly Vincent:
Well, in a way, yes. Because obviously, I remember having a bit of a conversation with my mom where she, with the best intentions and all the love in the world, had said to me, "I know how you feel." And I said to her, "Well, you don't, because even if you were in the same situation, mental health-wise, you would still be able to get up out of bed and go to the loo and go for a walk or go down to the coffee shop and get a crappy coffee at the very least." It's actually quite good at the RAH [crosstalk 00:06:52].
David Bevan:
Yeah. But you say in your tweet, "People with multiple diagnoses exist and hospitals suck at accommodating us." Is that the point that you're making?
Kelly Vincent:
Absolutely. Yeah. Like obviously if I had only one of these conditions, it would have been much simpler to provide the support. But the point is, I do have them and a lot of disabled people have multiple diagnoses. And the system needs to recognise and accommodate that much better than it currently does.
