After coming out of hospital recently I stayed with my Mum for a couple of months before getting a new place. I tried ringing the Centrelink Disability Support Pensioners’ and Carers’ Line to tell them of my move. Five times. On five separate days. Each time it was engaged, except for one time I got through but, after entering my CRN, I was put onto a line that rang without any answer. I rang again immediately. It was engaged.
When I took the half hour walk to my nearest Centrelink, after a 25 minute wait in line I was told that Centrelink’s policy is not to backpay rent assistance. Which is unjustified money-scrounging in itself, but even more so if Centrelink prevented me from doing so. So the 10 days I lived in my new place without telling them were deducted from my rent assistance. The women at the desk were already aware of the problem with the Pensioners’ line but were unable to help me.
6 June 2007
My Adventures at St Vincent Hospital PECC and the NSW Department of Housing
A few months ago I had a bad manic episode with psychosis. I voluntarily admitted myself to St Vincent’s Hospital. I discharged myself after spending a week in emergency intake departments. They’re called Psychiatric Emergency Care Centres (PECC), have minimal facilities and are meant to hold you for no more than a day or two before you get into a ward.
I had to recount my story, which was a distressing and embarrassing one, to no less than seven doctors in useless 10 minute interviews. I never saw the same doctor twice. Some of the doctors were absolute beginners and had limited knowledge of the niceties of neuropsychiatry. The nurses seemed to have more intuitive knowledge of what was going on, which is understandable since they get to know the patients.
Mania is exacerbated by lack of sleep. 3 out of 7 nights there my sleep was interrupted. Once when a schizophrenic patient had a spaz out in the middle of the night, once when a security camera failed and had to be fixed, and another time when I was transferred at 3am to St George Hospital’s PECC because there was a bed shortage crisis. I live in the city and my relatives live nowhere near Kogarah. Hence my decision to discharge myself early, against the advice of doctors.
In my psychosis I lost my housing. The hospital did not assign me a social worker or liaise with the Department of Housing, and considered sleeping on my (also mentally ill) Mother’s lounge to be adequate housing.
Luckily I was still in a hypomanic state and had the drive to be able to apply for Department of Housing accommodation, which is a Herculean effort in itself. I visited their offices at least four times, had to run all over the place sourcing documentation from the hospital, Centrelink, at least 3 different forms from my psychiatrist on 3 different occasions, etc. I applied for “Priority Housing”, yet it still took the Department of Housing 2 months to even get me an interview. I heard homeless people being turned away from emergency accommodation because all the motel rooms were booked out during Mardi Gras.
Eventually I was rejected for Priority Housing because, though I fulfilled all other criteria, I was considered able to find accommodation myself. This is the case if there are properties in your area that cost less than 50% of your income. However, if you get the Disability Support Pension, this means 50% of your pension proper, plus your full rent assistance. So someone on a total benefit of $315/wk is considered capable of affording $185/wk.
Meanwhile I have to pay off debts, buy basic furniture, medication, new sneakers, a new backpack, medicate myself with yoga, exercise and vitamins, etc, etc. And I was unable to access the Department of Housing’s Rental Bond Assistance since this would alert potential landlords that I am not working, rendering me unable to find a place in the currently overheated Sydney rental market. No one can live on that kind of income, even if they do depression-style scrimp cooking. So it’s back to sex work I go.
I’m disgusted when I think back on my dealings with these supposed safety nets over the past few months. I hate to think how other people like me with mental illnesses but who have a lower IQ, less social intelligence and assertiveness, and nothing to trade like their body must cope with such an uncaring system. I guess they end up at Matthew Talbot Hostel or something.
I had to recount my story, which was a distressing and embarrassing one, to no less than seven doctors in useless 10 minute interviews. I never saw the same doctor twice. Some of the doctors were absolute beginners and had limited knowledge of the niceties of neuropsychiatry. The nurses seemed to have more intuitive knowledge of what was going on, which is understandable since they get to know the patients.
Mania is exacerbated by lack of sleep. 3 out of 7 nights there my sleep was interrupted. Once when a schizophrenic patient had a spaz out in the middle of the night, once when a security camera failed and had to be fixed, and another time when I was transferred at 3am to St George Hospital’s PECC because there was a bed shortage crisis. I live in the city and my relatives live nowhere near Kogarah. Hence my decision to discharge myself early, against the advice of doctors.
In my psychosis I lost my housing. The hospital did not assign me a social worker or liaise with the Department of Housing, and considered sleeping on my (also mentally ill) Mother’s lounge to be adequate housing.
Luckily I was still in a hypomanic state and had the drive to be able to apply for Department of Housing accommodation, which is a Herculean effort in itself. I visited their offices at least four times, had to run all over the place sourcing documentation from the hospital, Centrelink, at least 3 different forms from my psychiatrist on 3 different occasions, etc. I applied for “Priority Housing”, yet it still took the Department of Housing 2 months to even get me an interview. I heard homeless people being turned away from emergency accommodation because all the motel rooms were booked out during Mardi Gras.
Eventually I was rejected for Priority Housing because, though I fulfilled all other criteria, I was considered able to find accommodation myself. This is the case if there are properties in your area that cost less than 50% of your income. However, if you get the Disability Support Pension, this means 50% of your pension proper, plus your full rent assistance. So someone on a total benefit of $315/wk is considered capable of affording $185/wk.
Meanwhile I have to pay off debts, buy basic furniture, medication, new sneakers, a new backpack, medicate myself with yoga, exercise and vitamins, etc, etc. And I was unable to access the Department of Housing’s Rental Bond Assistance since this would alert potential landlords that I am not working, rendering me unable to find a place in the currently overheated Sydney rental market. No one can live on that kind of income, even if they do depression-style scrimp cooking. So it’s back to sex work I go.
I’m disgusted when I think back on my dealings with these supposed safety nets over the past few months. I hate to think how other people like me with mental illnesses but who have a lower IQ, less social intelligence and assertiveness, and nothing to trade like their body must cope with such an uncaring system. I guess they end up at Matthew Talbot Hostel or something.
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