I had an interesting question put to me not long back by a carer, what do I get paid an hour to provide respite?. I replied $20, he replied with, "where does the other $37 an hour go, paid for by the State government for me to go in the first place?"...

Now, I didn't think past the point giving him the reticence asked of me by my employer not to get involved in such conversations with client, carer in the first place. He asked me if I would understand his point of view, I agreed given his need to talk out a possible problem he may have encounted. He said he had the trust in me to deliver the service, however the day before had an altercation over the phone with office staff member telling him the shower staff needed to change the morning time, he tried to explain his son's need for consistancy with asperger's, the reply over the phone was "take it or we cancel the shower from the run". I asked of his knowledge for advocacy and he replied he was seeking assistance through Commonwealth Care Link.

This carer is not the first with such experiences dealing with the administration side of service providers. In fact, his experience is common. Nurses and carers working for providers are also handicapped having to deal with administration inaction. I recently attended a staff meeting with support staff mentioning our need to understand (client) needs and stresses and in future we need to organise times for dealing with our issues or those of clients.  It was put to us to leave a note and "someone will get back to us with regard."

Excuse me, but who died and made them God's to be rekonned with, skimming $37 an hour? I'm providing the actual service for the client in the first place. I couldn't help myself and replied: "yep I'll leave a message in the pigeon hole and mark a reminder question on it so I remember days or weeks down the track what they're talking about when they get around to phoning me for a time." Give me a break! What part of "support staff" don't these people understand?

Anyway, a week later I had a problem and needed an answer so I went straight to the manager who was totally amazed with why I was asking her a question that should have been addressed to the "support staff". From that moment.....Retribution by "support staff" was swift with no co car available for client transport I had that same week using instead my own car.