Deborah Knight confronts NDIS Minister after reports hundreds died waiting
The NDIS Minister has denied reports more than a thousand people have died waiting for packages and insists the wait times are acceptable.
According to Newscorp, more than 1200 Australians have died while waiting for a National Disability Insurance Scheme package in just three years.
This includes 65 children, 35 of whom are aged six and younger from July 2016 to September 2019.
The deaths occurred as families waited four months on average for National Disability Insurance Scheme support last year.
Minister for NDIS Stuart Robert tells Deborah Knight the numbers date back to when people were transitioning from state schemes.
“No one has passed away waiting for the NDIS.
“The access time wait is four days for an Australian citizen to get access to NDIS.”
However, it takes an average of 77 days for an NDIS plan to be implemented but the Minister insists this is a huge improvement from when the scheme first started.
Deborah Knight: “There are others that have been on our radio station, they’re not happy with that time frame, they don’t agree with you, Minister, that 77 days is good enough.”
Stuart Roberts: “It’s an enormous improvement for what is a very complex world-leading scheme.”
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Image: Getty/Eric O’Connell