I would suspect this particular case will feature prominently in the upcoming R.C. hearings
nomadic . As well it should. The report would suggest everyone involved in this horrific incident just saw the lad as less than human, so who/why should anyone care or even bother. Criminal charges definitely need to be laid on this one! To think.....this is Australian Disability Care in 2019.
www.abc.net.au/7.30/family-wants-answers-about-how-son-with-disability/11319446
Copy of Transcript:-LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Planning is under way for a royal commission into abuse and violence experienced by people with a disability, something that the Morrison government announced earlier this year.
Workshops are currently being held ahead of public hearings, in each state and territory.
Tonight, you'll meet a Queensland family desperate to get justice for their son after he experienced life-threatening injuries in supported accommodation. The family's furious that they still have no answers nine months on about what went wrong and who should be accountable.
This report from Michael Atkin contains images that some viewers may find confronting.
(Mother talking to son while playing with a toy)
SHARON CAMAC, EDEN'S MOTHER: Good spin, Eden.
(Eden makes a happy noise)
SHARON CAMAC: Yes! Good spin and good talking! We love to hear your voice.
MICHAEL ATKIN, REPORTER: Eden Camac loves playing with his mother Sharon at their Bundaberg home.
SHARON CAMAC: You move your body where you'd like to.
MICHAEL ATKIN: Eden has a complex disability and lives at a nearby specialist facility, where he receives help with all aspects of his daily life.
(Eden sitting in a high wheelchair, with a respiration tube taped to his face)
SHARON CAMAC: (to Eden) What do you want?
He has Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, so what that means, he is missing a small portion or a portion of the fourth chromosome. That results in what the medical terminology is 'severe growth and mental retardation'.
(Phone rings)
(re-enactment) Hello, this is Sharon...
MICHAEL ATKIN: Early one morning, last October, Sharon received an emergency phone call from a disability support worker saying Eden was being rushed to hospital.
SHARON CAMAC: The support worker sounded quite distressed on the phone, so more from the tone in his voice, I could tell something was very, very wrong.
(Video of Eden looking distressed on a hospital bed)
Michael, this is a video that I took of Eden when he was in hospital in ICU to his injuries. I wanted to show you how much pain and suffering that Eden experienced.
(On the video, to Eden) Hold on, hold on, we're doing it nice and quick...
MICHAEL ATKIN: So, knowing Eden, how unusual is it for him to be many that much pain?
SHARON CAMAC: That pain to me looks like it is unbearable. You can see all over his face, the look of just horror.
(Still shot of Eden heavily intubated and covered in sensors in a hospital bed)
(Close up photos of long scars)
(X-ray of a leg bone with a metal support bolted to it)
MICHAEL ATKIN: Eden's horrific injuries included two broken hips and a broken left leg, injuries normally experienced by car crash victims.
DR ALISON HALLETT, ORTHOPARDIC SURGEON, BUNDABERG HOSPITAL: Any long bone fracture is a significant injury with associated blood loss and insult on the body and on the system.
And to have somebody who is not the fittest to start with, and to have three of those injuries, then, yeah, he was at risk.
MICHAEL ATKIN: The only direct account of how Eden was injured comes from the support worker involved. He claimed he failed to put the bed rails up, allowing Eden to fall on the floor, something the Camacs questioned.
SHARON CAMAC: At that time of night, Eden is connected up to his feeding bag - the pump that's connected to the tube that goes from his nose to his stomach - so the fact that that was all still connected in place doesn't add up as to him falling out of bed.
MICHAEL ATKIN: Even worse, the support worker on night shift didn't record or report Eden's injuries. Instead, he put Eden back to bed, leaving him to suffer for 10 hours until another worker called an ambulance.
MICHAEL CAMAC, EDEN'S FATHER: Just on that alone, doing - having the broken legs and all of the rest of it, and just scooping him up and putting him back to bed, according to his story, yeah, that should be a chargeable offence.
MICHAEL ATKIN: Surgeons were so worried Eden might not survive, they were reluctant to operate. The Camacs had to push for them to go ahead with life-saving surgery.
(Montage of x-rays of broken bones)
SHARON CAMAC: It was a conversation that we were very shocked to have, because anyone else would have received the surgery. You or I would have received this surgery.
DR ALISON HALLETT: Because of his previous medical problems - you know, he's diabetic, he has seizures, his lung function isn't great, the anaesthetic really did put him at significant risk.
And he wasn't mobile before. So it was weighing up the balance of the risks of the surgery and the pain relief that it would give afterwards.
MICHAEL ATKIN: The surgery was successful and, for the next month in hospital, Eden battled to keep going. But it was touch and go.
MICHAEL CAMAC (emotional): Yeah.... It is just one of those things. What can you do? All you can do is... it is up to him. If he wants to take one more breath, he takes one more breath.
It was very hard.
(Michael and Sharon lying on either side of Eden on the living room floor)
(Speaking to Eden) Shrek, you haven't watched this for years.
MICHAEL ATKIN: As Eden continues to recover, his family remain outraged that he sustained such serious injuries while in care. The support worker has been fired, but no action has been taken against the disability provider Community Lifestyle Support.
SHARON CAMAC: It really is about all the processes and systems in police and how they have failed Eden in this situation - from Health to police to department bodies.
LUKE GALE, PEOPLE WITH DISABILITY AUSTRALIA: Oh, I think it is not just to Eden, this is regular, recurring and can be demonstrated by many, many cases like within Queensland, within the nation.
The statistics say someone with a disability is about 10 times more likely to experience serious harm.
(Speaking to the Camacs) Given the significance of his injury, we managed to pass those on to relevant ministers.
SHARON CAMAC: So it's unknown at the moment...
MICHAEL ATKIN: Advocate Luke Gale is helping the family seek answers. He believes there have been multiple breaches of Eden's rights and potential breaches of the law.
I think there needs to be thorough investigation into the whole event. Like, we haven't even defined if that was accidental or some act of actual violence against Eden.
It is fundamentally wrong. If it happened at a school, if it happened at a nursing home, if it happened at a workplace, there would be very thorough follow-up.
MICHAEL ATKIN: 7.30 can reveal that Community Lifestyle Report failed to report the incident to the Department of Disability Services. Sharon Camac had to inform the department herself.
Incredibly, the compliance unit declined to investigate, forcing her to lodge a complaint which is still being looked into.
SHARON CAMAC: It was incredibly disappointing, and I would have thought the compliance unit would have been more involved in researching, investigating, understanding what happened to Eden, to see where the failures were in their systems and the processes that are there to safeguard people with disability.
MICHAEL ATKIN: The police did investigate and according to records seen by 7.30 considered laying criminal charges for negligence, but decided against it and closed the case.
An internal police review is now underway.
SHARON CAMAC: I don't believe that Eden has had a right to justice. I think that system has failed him as a person living with a complex disability.
(Michael and Sharon Camac sitting outside at their house)
MICHAEL CAMAC: Let's see what you've got.
SHARON CAMAC: Let's have a look and see how Eden's going...
MICHAEL ATKIN: Eden Camac's family only let him return to the Community Lifestyle Support facility after they secured major changes to his care. Cameras are installed inside his room, which they can watch remotely.
MICHAEL CAMAC. Oh, he's happy. He's got his hammer.
MICHAEL ATKIN: Community Lifestyle Support declined to be interviewed. In a statement, the provider apologised to Eden and his family.
SHARON CAMAC (speaking to Eden): Is that good?
MICHAEL ATKIN: The Camacs are speaking out because they want systematic change. They are calling for the multiple failures experienced by Eden to be examined by the upcoming royal commission into violence, abuse and neglect against people with a disability.
(Eden ringing a bell while sitting in a wheelchair)
MICHAEL CAMAC: Sharon and I have been working on this for a good nine months and we haven't left any stone unturned, and we physically are exhausted.
We don't want it to happen again.
LEIGH SALES: Michael Atkin with that report and you can read full statements from Community Lifestyle Support, the Queensland Department of disability services and Queensland Police on our website.
