In its relentless push to curb overspending and cut funds, the NDIS has introduced policies aimed at redirecting participants to the mainstream health system. In theory, distributing resources across multiple systems seems practical—a strategy to alleviate the strain on a single framework. However, in practice, these policies jeopardise lives, sacrificed on the altar of political posturing.
Victoria’s state healthcare system is already buckling under immense pressure: overwhelmed, underfunded, and stretched beyond capacity. To compound the issue, the Victorian Government itself faces political pressures to slash costs, with both metropolitan and regional health services experiencing significant funding cuts. In the 2024–2025 budget year, these services are projected to see reductions exceeding $10 million in some cases, despite anticipated increases in patient demand.
The services to which NDIS participants are being redirected often exist only on paper or come with prohibitively long waitlists. Despite this grim reality, participants are forced to endure exhausting appeals processes and navigate procedural roadblocks to prove they have attempted or utilised what the NDIS terms “Phase 1 and Phase 2 treatments”—even if those attempts occurred years ago.
But where can participants turn when neither the NDIS nor the overstretched state health system can meet their needs? What happens to those whose very lives are put at risk by policies implemented without the necessary infrastructure to support them?
The consequences are dire: participants are being driven from their homes and forced into overcrowded hospitals. These fragile, idealistic policies lack the structural integrity required to protect the most vulnerable members of society, instead leaving them caught in the crossfire of politically reactive and shortsighted decisions.
This crisis not only underscores the chronic underfunding of Australia’s healthcare systems but also serves as a dire warning. How many more lives must be lost before we confront the human cost of such policies? How many must suffer before meaningful action is taken to construct foundations that genuinely serve and protect those in need?
Disability does not discriminate. In an instant, any one of us—our loved ones, our friends, even ourselves—could find ourselves reliant on a system that increasingly fails to deliver what it was designed to provide: care, support, choice, and freedom.
