Call for more support for disabled

Disabled people need support so they can live normal, independent lives, but don't want special treatment, a Wairarapa disability support worker says.

"We don't want anything special - we just want to be accepted as members of our community," said area manager for IDEA Services for Wairarapa, Marie Long.

The 2012 monitoring report on disability rights in New Zealand was released last week. Findings were based on feedback from 156 disabled people and focused on health, employment, access to services and support, awareness around disability, social inclusion and barriers to making complaints.

The report found a major lack of disability services and awareness.

In each of the six focus areas, disabled people said their human rights were not being met, creating barriers to their inclusion in the community.

Mrs Long said supporting people with disabilities to be as independent as possible was essential. "We have a number of people who do lawns and we have a couple of people working in rest homes.

"We support people to lead independent and ordinary lives - to learn about household tasks, live in a flat if they want to," she said.

Catering for disabled people was about matching services to their specific needs, she said. "As long as we treat individuals as individuals and match their needs to what we support, there's not usually too much of an issue."

About one in five New Zealanders are living with a disability, according to Statistics NZ. Key recommendations from the monitoring report included:

Changing the building code to include things like hearing loops, visual alarms and ramps;

Forming a central agency to implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities;

Simplifying disability funding to make it more accessible for disabled people;

Reviewing carer pay to ensure trained workers are paid more than untrained carers;

Removal of minimum wage exemptions for some workers.

Labour Party disability spokeswoman Clare Curran said a disproportionately high number of disabled people were unemployed because of barriers to employment.

Her Green Party counterpart, Mojo Mathers - New Zealand's first deaf MP - said the Christchurch city rebuild was an ideal opportunity for updating building codes to improve access.

"Many of the recommendations, such as updating and strengthening the building code, will make a significant outcome to the lives of many disabled people."

Red Nicholson, a 26-year-old Auckland high school teacher who has cerebral palsy, said things like access to transport often made it difficult for disabled people to find work.

"You need to have reliable transport and you need to have money for clothes to dress properly for interviews."

Mr Nicholson, who uses a wheelchair to get around, said service accessibility also caused problems.

"If you don't know the right person to call or the right thing to put in the application or that the support exists in the first place, it's hard to do anything.

"Half the battle is just navigating the system."

Deputy Health and Disability commissioner Tania Thomas said the report highlighted important issues facing disabled New Zealanders. "We need to make sure everything we do about our services [and] the information we provide is highly accessible." APNZ