Richard Handley’s inquest concluded yesterday, the coroner found gross failings, missed opportunities and that Richard should not have died. No-one should die of constipation in a civilised society. It’s utterly disgraceful. It makes me so angry and so sad. It’s too early for me to blog about the coroner’s decision or what we might change […]
I’ve spent the last fortnight in Ipswich, live tweeting the inquest of Richard Handley, a young man whose life was cut short in it’s prime, aged just 33. I’ve spent break times with Richard’s family in the court jury room, listening to the telling of tales and the sort of family folklore that we’d all […]
This will be my final blog post from Antipodean soil. I had a few days in Sydney before flying home and managed to cram in some social and some craftivism, as well as in person meetings at Sydney Children’s Hospital and the Clinical Excellence Commission and two phone meetings, one with a bereaved family member […]
My penultimate day in Australia and I had the absolute joy of a day with Aine and Eddie. We met in the city and got the ferry across to Cockatoo Island. We scooted and wandered around taking in the old industrial sights, and the more contemporary, it’s currently being used for filming a new series […]
Why are you going to Tassie? It’s been a frequent question on this trip and I’ll be honest I did start asking myself the same question when I realised the distance I was travelling for 2.5 days. When it came to planning my WCMT Fellowship I knew I wanted to visit the countries I’m visiting […]
Last week started in Brisbane and I flew back to Melbourne on Wednesday. Wednesday evening I met John Chesterman, Director of Strategy and currently Acting Advocate, at the Victorian Office of the Public Advocate. John was one of the first people I contacted when planning my WCMT travels as he himself is a former Australian […]
I’m at the stage in my trip where my motivation to blog daily is waning a little. A lot of what I’m hearing is reinforcing what I’ve already been told, and I’m taking copious notes whenever I meet someone, however the heat in Brisbane (it was hot, very humid and damp – a little like […]
I spent today, International Day of People with Disability 2017, in Brisbane. Well that’s not strictly true, I spent some of it in Brisbane, some of it travelling to the Gold Coast and a significant chunk of it having an incredibly pleasurable lunch and walk on the beach/paddle in the shallows and chat with Sally […]
During my very limited time in New Zealand (10 days, not nearly enough) I spoke to a number of people about investigating the deaths of learning disabled people and improving their access to healthcare. I asked all of them the same question ‘who should I be speaking with to find out about academic research in […]
I wanted to record some random thoughts generated through the exceptional Disability Matters Conference. You can visit the conference website here and see what was covered. I can honestly say its been a long time since I’ve been at such an eclectic and authentic conference. The three days brought together disabled people and self advocates, […]