“So, here is my uncensored experience of the DES (Disability Employment Services) system. I am in this stream, because I have chronic, incurable pain in my hip, due to having developed Perthes disease as a child. Perthes disease is rare, and the average person in the street has never heard of it. Neither has Centrelink, or any of the numerous DES Providers I’ve had the misfortune to encounter.
Most Perthes patients will develop pain in their hip as they age, usually much sooner than non Perthes patients. The pain varies from day to day, if I am too physically active, I tend to develop pain soon after. It also restricts my ability to perform most physical tasks, including standing and walking for extended periods. I can do the weekly shop, but I’m usually in a lot of pain by the end.
The career I planned for, and trained for, as an Automotive Parts Interpreter, is quite a physical role. So, my employer back in 2013 panicked, and decided the easiest to solve their HR problem was to get rid of me. I’d also like to add that they never gave me a medical, and my condition is not obvious. They also told me I was making it up. Why would I make up a disease that no one has heard of , and why did I know so much about it, and why do I have a surgical scar on my body on my hip?
My point is that the types of jobs I can do are very restricted compared to other people. There might be 40,000 job vacancies, but if I can’t do any or 99% of them, they’re a bit irrelevant.
Every one of my DES Providers has made the same promises to help me, but haven’t. My Case Manager often changed regularly. Every new Case Manager had no idea about me, or my problems. They’d put me forward for jobs that were totally unsuitable, despite me explaining my limitations. The jobs I got, I got myself.
The biggest barrier I face is that Employers just do not want employees with serious, pre-existing issues like I have.
I may have the right Qualification, and years of experience , but I get ruled out as soon as my medical history comes up. Even the Government incentives do not sway them. And they skirt around discrimination laws by saying I’m not a good fit, or the other applicant was better (i.e., the younger person with zero experience and zero qualifications).
Really, my biggest beef with DES Providers is they have no idea, they don’t help, they don’t get results, and as happened at least once, they lost their Government Contract due to not meeting their own KPI’s. I turned up for my appointment, everyone was running around like headless chickens, and I was told to find a new Provider. Hmm.
I don’t like the term “Disability” either. Employers hear that, and tend to make their own erroneous assumptions. I shouldn’t have to share my confidential medical history with strangers either. If I mention to someone, I had Perthes disease they look at me blankly, or worse, as happened before, they think I’m making it up. I can make people look stupid quite easily. I just show them my scar and say “Oh I’m making this up, am I?” Physical proof, right in front of their eyes. Not that it’s any of their business. You don’t go up to a blind person and accuse them of faking it.
There are many people walking around the streets with surgical scars hidden by their clothes. You wouldn’t know unless you saw them at the beach, or in a communal change room.
Occasionally I’ve been asked, and I just tell a massive lie and say I got attacked by a shark! It’s easier than trying to explain what really happened, and it’s believable.” – Andrew.
Anti-Poverty Network SA 