Karyn Dexter speaks out about poor NDIS implementation

Karyn Dexter’s eyes filled with tears, and her voice shook as she spoke about the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), which was rolled out by the Australian Government in July last year.

Mrs Dexter became frustrated with the system after it made the process to find funding for her daughter Talitha’s disability services more arduous than ever. 

“You fight for every little bit of funding, and fight for every little thing that they get.

“And then the NDIS comes and they promise the world, and then you find out you have to fight even harder just to get [what you had in the first place].” 

Valmar is one of the disability support services whose role has been significantly impacted by the NDIS. 

CEO Hugh Packard believes that, while the underlying philosophy of the NDIS is sound, the way in which it was delivered was the reason for much of the discontent throughout the community. 

“The outcomes and the flexibility it gives people with disabilities is really good. It’s a scheme which does deliver much more choice and ability for people to be creative around what they receive.

“The downside is that it’s incredibly administratively complex, both for organisations like us and families who’ve never had to deal with that sort of thing [dealing with the government] before.”

Mr Packard believes that part of the reason the scheme is so complex is because it was implemented “so fast”.

“In New South Wales, there was only two years to get it completely rolled out, so there’s been a massive … haste in getting people onto plans.”

Meanwhile, Mrs Dexter is simply focused on ensuring that Talitha will continue to receive the same amount of funding she had before the NDIS was implemented. 

She is reticent to engage the National Disability Insurance Association (NDIA) any more than necessary, after the first instance led to two reviews of her policy, both of which were lengthy, and she wasn’t allowed to see a draft of her contract before it was implemented. 

“You don’t know anything, because you don’t get to see your plan until you get it, and if you want to change it, you have to go through the review process, which now is taking two to eight months.”