Life's Harsh Realities !

When we hear in the media that someone has been sentenced to a prison term for a crime we rarely think beyond the appropriateness of the sentence.   There may be kids involved who are in danger of losing contact with Mum or Dad.  Social workers stress the importance of maintaining that bond to both rehabilitate the prisoner on release and to maintain family values that guide a child's upbringing.

In many cases the children of a prisoner are taken into care by grandparents and in some cases they are too frail or too poor to undertake the travel long distances to where the prison is located.  There is also the problem of the remaining parent being in bitter dispute with a former partner - and refusing to take children for such a visit.

For the past twenty-six years a small volunteer organization has existed to fill this gap.  It takes children on prison visits and stays with them until it is time to take them home and last year it accommodated 123 children on 63 visits.  Over those years it has been sustained by a small annual government grant to  allow frugal reimbursement of fuel costs to keep the service running.  Sadly, this year that grant has become the victim of fiscal belt tightening - and it has been refused.

The probable outcome is that some volunteers will be forced to withdraw from providing help and travel to distant prisons will be the first to be cut.  One of those instances where a few paltry dollars can deliver a dividend that would be totally impossible if undertaken as a government service.

The worst possible news that can befall any patient is the diagnosis that they are suffering a terminal illness.   In many cases there is medication outside the scope of the PBS that may ease the onset of the disease and sometimes buy a few more months of life - but it is also usually very expensive. Many people apply to dip into their superannuation to fund this treatment, but strict rules apply.

At least two specialists must agree that the patient has less than twelve months to live.  The rigidity of this ruling is galling.  Specialists are being put in an impossible position when they know that the terminality is final - but that the end may linger over a period of a year or so. The bureaucratic demand for a precise time of death is both inhumane - and impossible to accurately predict.

It also fails the very purpose for which superannuation was intended.   That was the expectation that the final years of life would be comfortable and adequately funded.  When an illness intervenes to shorten the life expectancy there seems an inconsistency that this money can not be used and must remain in a superannuation pot until it becomes part of that persons estate - and is distributed according to the will of the deceased.

It seems strange that superannuation rules are under review to allow first home buyers to access part of their savings to accrue the deposit needed to purchase a home and yet the terminally ill will be denied access until the final months of their illness, unless they can find a specialist prepared to knowingly sign off on an untruth.

Such is the outcome when the need for a bureaucratic framework clashes with the humanities that underscore each and every case that awaits decision.