Different jobs
Why a support worker and a nurse aren't interchangeable
The Federal Government's position is based on the assumption that when NDIS support is stripped away, the health system will replace it.
But that isn't what it's supposed to do. The health system is for people who are sick, not people who have had their support taken away. And the roles of health and disability staff are not interchangeable.
A nurse delivers clinical care and treats illness. A disability support worker knows the person they support and does the disability specific work that keeps that person safe while the clinical team treats them.
These are complementary roles, not substitutes. Remove one and you don't save a wage. You double the workload and hand a second, unfamiliar job to a nurse who is already stretched.
- Clinical observations, medication, wound and IV care
- Care across the whole ward, not one patient
- Responds when free, cannot be bedside 24/7
- Meets the person for the first time on admission
- Works to hospital protocols and time constraints
- Interprets non-verbal pain and communication (Auslan, PODD, eye-gaze)
- Spots a seizure building before it shows to a stranger
- Prevents wandering, falls and IV pull-outs 1:1
- Knows the person's baseline: what's normal, what's changed
- Follows established routines that prevent distress and escalation
Les Cope, on Adam, his son
When the disability support worker is gone, the need doesn't disappear. It falls upon nursing staff who don't know the patient, on families dragged back to the bedside, or on the patient themselves: choking on food that wasn't cut, meltdowns in a bright ward, IV lines pulled out, pain that no one interprets correctly. That is not safer care. It is a workload transfer onto a workforce with nothing left to give.