Girl, 17, with Leukaemia 'not sick enough' to get benefits

[Banjo]

Girl, 17, with Leukaemia and who is undergoing chemotherapy told she's 'not sick enough' to get Centrelink benefits

Young teenager denied Centrelink access to pay for chemotherapy medication
Maddison Delaney, 17, was diagnosed with Leukaemia when she was 16 in 2016
The 17-year-old said Centrelink told her she wasn't sick enough for Health Care
'We just want the card so it cheapens my medication,' she wrote in a petition


A 17-year-old girl with Leukaemia has been rejected by Centrelink because they don't think she is sick enough.

Maddison Delaney said she has applied for a government Health Care Card 'multiple times' in order to get cheaper medication, however she has been rejected every time.

The young Sydney teenager wrote an online petition saying while she had finished her 'intensive treatment' since being diagnosed in 2016, she still needed to undergo 'oral chemotherapy and use 'antibiotics'.

My family and I since I was first diagnosed have tried multiple times to get a Centrelink Health Care card, which would mean that my medication would be cheaper,' Ms Delaney wrote.

'To get this card, you have to be eligible for a benefit scheme, yet time after time we have been denied.

'We do not want any money. We just want the card so it cheapens my medication.'

The young teenager said Centrelink had refused to give her a Health Care card because she was 'over the age of 16 and under 18 at diagnosis' and did not have a 'terminal illness'.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5561261/Leukaemia-teen-rejected-Centrelink-dont-think-sick-enough.html#ixzz5BDwRswWH
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[Deleted]

Mar 30, 2018 16:44:41 GMT 7 Banjo said:

The young teenager said Centrelink had refused to give her a Health Care card because she was 'over the age of 16 and under 18 at diagnosis' and did not have a 'terminal illness'.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5561261/Leukaemia-teen-rejected-Centrelink-dont-think-sick-enough.html#ixzz5BDwRswWH
Follow us: @mailonline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

They really need a reality check; because I have known Two Teenagers who have had terminal Leukaemia!  On was in remission, caught an infection; finished. Damned imbecoimb!   Bear

[Denis-NFA]

Mar 30, 2018 20:21:15 GMT 7 bear said:

Mar 30, 2018 16:44:41 GMT 7 Banjo said:

The young teenager said Centrelink had refused to give her a Health Care card because she was 'over the age of 16 and under 18 at diagnosis' and did not have a 'terminal illness'.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5561261/Leukaemia-teen-rejected-Centrelink-dont-think-sick-enough.html#ixzz5BDwRswWH
Follow us: @mailonline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

They really need a reality check; because I have known Two Teenagers who have had terminal Leukaemia!  On was in remission, caught an infection; finished. Damned imbecoimb!   Bear

bear

26 years ago my daughter contracted leukemia at the age of 11.

She was air lifted from Canberra to a hospital in Sydney.

She is still on the go but 'lord's sake' she has lost most of her friends.

It's things like this that concern me about NDIS.

[nomadic]

GGGRRROOOWWWLLL. this is exactly why a royal commission into centrelink is required.

[Deleted]

RC needed indeed but have to get rid of the Libs first.

[krystal]

It's lets pick an excuse time ...

"Your over 16 and under 18" seems pretty slim.
Next up - "you are undergoing chemotherapy, your condition isn't stabilised"
And finally - Leukaemia has to at nursing home required level with only 2 years to live.

I wonder if the treatment for Leukaemia will ever get passed the human trial stage in Australia considering it's been in practice for over 8 years in the US and UK.
www.westmeadinstitute.org.au/news-and-events/2017/australian-first-new-human-clinical-trials-offers

[Banjo]

‘Unless you're dying, they're not interested': Brisbane dad with bowel cancer rejected by Centrelink

A young Brisbane dad battling bowel cancer has lashed out at Centrelink after his application for benefits was rejected.

Tristan Hardwick, 33, is one of several cancer patients nine.com.au has spoken to who claim the system has let them down when they most need it.

Mr Hardwick, who is a father to three-year-old Seth, was diagnosed with stage three bowel cancer in November last year.

Within a week of his diagnosis, Mr Harwick had undergone major surgery to remove his colon, bowel and rectum.

Knowing he would be unable to work during his recovery, Mr Hardwick said he applied to Centrelink for a Sickness Allowance before his operation, with his partner handing in the forms.

Sickness Allowance is a short-term payment offered by Centrelink to help people on low incomes who can’t work because of a medical condition.

Mr Hardwick, had recently started up his own first aid training company which had only just begun making enough money for him to take a wage. But without him working, the company would not be making any money at all, he said.

With his partner earning just $45,000 a year, Mr Hardwick, who is also an SES volunteer, said he expected his family would easily meet Centrelink’s low income criteria.

“The attempt was to get $200 a fortnight, it wasn’t a lot. But it would have just helped with at least car parking for my family to come visit me at the hospital, which costs $25 a day,” Mr Hardwick said.

“Or to put towards rent or childcare payments for the fact that my son is in five days a week at childcare.”

However, Mr Hardwick soon found himself caught up in a bureaucratic nightmare with Centrelink staff losing his papers, twice.

“They lost the paperwork and then I had to go in because they wanted to speak to me directly, not to my partner, to assess me. So I went there within the first few days of being out of hospital,” he said.

Weeks later, Mr Hardwick was told further medical evidence he had submitted online had not been processed properly.

Almost two months after his initial application, Mr Hardwick was last month given the news his application had been rejected because his partner “earned too much”.

A further application for a low income health care card was also rejected for the same reason.

According to the Centrelink website, families earning more than $960 a fortnight are not eligible for the Sickness Allowance. Nine.com.au has contacted the Department of Human Services for comment.

Mr Hardwick said he had also been told by staff that he was “not sick enough”.

“Unless you are dying from it, they are not interested, that’s pretty much what they were saying, which I think is wrong,” he said.

“I think the system is completely rorted and it’s swayed against people who actually do need proper help. I think unless you play the system you don’t get anywhere with it.”

Mr Hardwick said not being able to get support from Centrelink added to the stress of his recovery.

“You are left wondering where your next dollar is going to come from to pay that bill or to pay for that tank of fuel so that your partner and your child can come and visit you in hospital. That whole support network can be completely dismantled.

“The amount of times me and my partner argued over the stupid Centrelink application system is just ridiculous. We were getting angry at each other over something that we had no control over. And that was all because they just put me through the ringer.”

Mr Hardwick’s story comes just a week after Sydney teen cancer patient Maddison Delaney started up an online petition after her application for a Health Care Card was rejected by Centrelink.

Ms Delaney’s mother Renee told nine.com.au staff had demanded her immunosuppressed daughter visit Centrelink’s offices in her wheelchair “to sight her” before ultimately rejecting her application.

Another cancer patient, Anne Nathan, 58, was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2013.

For years the 58-year-old Brisbane mother made do with her Newstart allowance from Centrelink.

But, in 2016, when the struggle to meet her rent, medication costs and travel to hospitals became too much, she applied for a disability pension.

Her application was rejected by Centrelink because she was still undergoing treatment for her bowel cancer. Shocked, Ms Nathan fought the decision, taking the matter all the way to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

“At lot of people are ignorant. They just if they have all their medical records, they think ok I’ll get help, but it’s just not enough, they get knocked back,” Ms Nathan said.

“And people give up. But I appealed because I was thinking, ‘come on’. People need to appeal and try to fight for themselves.”

“It was really stressful at that time because I was trying to eat and trying to survive and pay for the rent and the power and all the rest of it.”

By the time Ms Nathan lost her appeal in January 2017, the cancer had appeared in a second part of her bowel.

Ms Nathan decided not to undergo chemotherapy and her doctors said her condition was terminal, giving her just 6-12 months to live.

It was this terminal diagnosis that meant Ms Nathan was finally given the disability pension.

“Once I went onto the DSP (Disability Support Pension) all of the stresses sort of just left,” she said.

“You get so many services on the DSP that the poor people on Newstart don’t get. They are struggling and have got to pay for all their medications, which are not cheap. It’s the stress of all that, the strain that can make people sicker.”

Meanwhile, Ms Nathan has defied her doctor’s predictions to live months longer than the 12 month time frame she was given.

“I consider myself lucky. I am just taking it day by day,” she said.

Contact reporter Emily McPherson at [e-mail].

www.9news.com.au/national/2018/04/05/11/25/unless-youre-dying-theyre-not-interested-brisbane-dad-with-bowel-cancer-rejected-by-centrelink

[Deleted]

 I hope people are waking up.  Bear

[latindancer]

Apr 5, 2018 14:33:06 GMT 7 Banjo said:

Almost two months after his initial application, Mr Hardwick was last month given the news his application had been rejected because his partner “earned too much”.

$45,000 a year to support two adults and a child is not a lot.

This is a problem for some people when their partner earns a fair bit.
At the moment I cannot work because of a medical condition indirectly related to the reason I am on DSP.
Previously I was working as much as I am allowed.

There is an issue though : after I report our (her) current earnings, often I am paid substantially less.....hundreds of dollars, actually..... than what I would normally get because my wife works (casually, but long hours sometimes).
The problem is that she is Thai and I, as "THE MAN", am supposed to support her, not the other way around.
So on top of paying 60% of the rent, I pay for petrol and car repairs to ferry us around.

She's not a stingy, grasping person at all....she just cannot get her head around the Western Way, which is to share everything 50-50. She's too conditioned by the Thai way.

[tasjo]

I suspect part of the problem for the guy with bowel cancer is that he is self employed and therefore would need a complex claim assessment... and the business income would go by his last years tax return if it was available unless he can show that the income has changed considerably.

I'm fairly sure 45k would be under the threshold for some newstart (and therefore sickness allowance) but any 'normal' assessor wouldnt have a clue how to assess their total income. We had the same issue when I requested Newstart provisional while DSP was assessed.

[nomadic]

The bastardry continues unabated. It will never stop unless the public at large understand what is going on. So the media are as much to blame for this as anyone else. I will soon say that 100% of them are on par with 100% of politicians. I have lived in hope for years that there is one moral journo out there but so far none.