The mother of a South Australian man with severe intellectual disability has shared her struggle to get answers after her son was taken to hospital with large bruising across his torso while he lived in state-managed supported accommodation.
Adelaide resident Karen Rogers told the disability royal commission on Tuesday it was still a mystery how her son Daniel, 40, experienced the injury, which stretched from “his spine to in front of his kidneys” and prompted concerns he could be experiencing internal bleeding.
Ms Rogers told the hearing she was alerted to the bruise in 2019 when a support worker from the accommodation rang to request a doctor be called for her son. The doctor recommended Daniel be taken to hospital.
“I was shocked to see the extent of the bruising around Daniel’s waist,” she said. “I was horrified.”
Doctors determined the bruise was not caused by internal bleeding, but Ms Rogers said her son, who has limited speech, epilepsy and a movement disorder, appeared traumatised by the incident.
She made the decision to move him out of the accommodation where he had lived for about 15 years and into their home.
On the way home from the hospital, Ms Rogers said she stopped by Daniel’s accommodation to pick up his medication but he became distressed as they entered the driveway.
“He held onto his seatbelt, constantly and repeatedly saying ‘don’t want it, don’t want it’,” Ms Rogers said.
Daniel is now happy and living at home with his mother and step father, Ms Rogers said. Source: Supplied
She said that if they mentioned the accommodation facility in conversation, "he became very distressed and would start hitting himself in the head.”
Days after the incident, a manager of the facility, Wayne Cunningham, told Ms Rogers he did not know anything about the origins of the bruising and urged her to report the injuries to the police, she said.
South Australian police interviewed staff at the facility and Daniel, who was unable to give a police statement, but were not able to take it further, the commission heard. Ms Rogers said a police officer told her there was a theory her son had fallen.
“This was the first time this had been suggested to me and came as a surprise because I had never known Daniel to have a fall or bruise easily,” she said.
Mr Rogers was then informed the South Australian Department of Human Services would begin their own investigation, but told the hearing neither she or her son were approached for an interview.
More than a year after the incident she was told the departmental investigation had been inconclusive and she would not be able to see a copy of the report without making a freedom of information application, the hearing heard.
Giving evidence later in the hearing, Mr Cunningham said every staff member who had worked at the facility around the time of the incident was formally interviewed but the cause of the bruise could not be determined.
“Staff believed it occurred outside the home but no one could come to a determination,” he said.
Muriel Kirkby, the director of accommodation services at the Department of Human Services, told the hearing there had been failures in the reporting process after the bruise was first noticed by staff.
She also said it was “not appropriate” that she was first notified of the incident days after Daniel had been taken to hospital by Ms Rogers.
“A lot of time went by there and, as you say, absolutely, it affected the investigation and affected our transparency and trust and all of those sorts of things with the family,” she said.
“When Karen rang me and sent me the photographs of the bruising, again, I was completely horrified that I was hearing this from a mum, as opposed to internally.”
Daniel had lived in supported accommodation since he was 11 years old, before moving permanently into Ms Rogers and her partner’s home in 2019.
Since living with Daniel, Ms Rogers said the couple have had to make significant changes to their property to ensure it is safe for him, including almost $20,000 in bathroom alterations.
Ms Rogers told the hearing she had been forced to retire from her job in the disability sector to become her son’s full-time carer and now has no income.
“We realised that even though we were happy to have Daniel home and he was very happy to be home, we needed more help through the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS),” she said.
She said the process of revising Daniel’s NDIS plan to meet his needs took months and “was like having to prove that Daniel had a disability all over again”.
In a letter to the NDIS chief executive, Martin Hoffman, in 2019, Ms Rogers wrote: “We made the decision to bring him home as he was unhappy and fearful. My life has been busy, hectic, and on occasions, quite traumatic. This all pales in significance when trying to deal with the NDIS.”
After launching an appeal with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Ms Rogers told the hearing Daniel “now has a good plan covering his requirements”.
“We found the NDIS process extremely difficult to navigate,” she said. “This is particularly concerning because I work in the sector, so I had a better than average understanding of the terminology and the process.”
The commission’s 14th public hearing into preventing and responding to violence, abuse, neglect, and exploitation in South Australian disability services will continue throughout the week.
A free national legal service has been established to assist people to share their story with the commission. The service, called , is independent of the inquiry and funded by Legal Aid.
Counselling and support services can also be found on the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability .
