Page 331 - Week 01 - Thursday, 29 November 2012
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breathing, assistance equipment, $90 per week for transport to and from university, as well as the cost of the carers who travel with him. What his small disability pension does not cover, John and Linda need to.
Dean has medical expenses as well. For example, his incontinence issues cost the family around $8,000 per annum for nappies, pants and other accessories in an attempt to keep him dry and free from nappy rash. His diabetes management is also horrendously expensive, as are the rest of his medical issues. The family has, as you can imagine, bills that most of us cannot contemplate, let alone control.
John works two jobs and Linda is the full-time carer for the boys. Neither of them has had a break from the 24-7 care. In fact, the last time they were able to go on holidays it was to a purpose-built disabled-friendly facility at Narooma in 2008. As it turned out, both boys became sick during those holidays. Carers ACT assisted them for a week at the farm as a small way of repaying John and Linda for always making themselves available to assist other parents who are in a similar situation and just starting down the road of caring for children with disabilities.
The fundraiser for the Hilliers—who are a typical family, and there are a lot of families in the same dire circumstances—has come about as a result of a number of us realising that urgent assistance is required to alleviate the pressures that have been building on John and Linda over the years, to give them some capacity to cope, to get the boys a few extras in the way of equipment and care that will assist their day-to-day issues, and to build some reserves to take care of some additional much-needed home maintenance issues that they have had to keep putting off because of constant medical expenses.
The fundraiser itself was very successful. The committee that put this fundraiser on raised in excess of $30,000. I think a lot of credit goes to Ross Dobson, Mark Tuttle and Michael O’Hehir. Normally, as many of you know, I hold one of these fundraisers every year but this was not my fundraiser. This was a community fundraiser and I was simply one part of a team that included a lot of John’s colleagues from the federal department of finance. I have already mentioned, Ross Dobson, Mark Tuttle and Michael O’Hehir.
I would also like to thank Tim Gavel who, as usual, gave generously of his time as MC. I was the quizmaster. Ross Dobson was the fundraising director. The quiz director was Mark Tuttle. The committee adviser was John Hillier. Auctioneer was Greg Sadil from Sadil Quinlan and Andrea Ho was the raffle master.
There were a lot of very generous organisations. To start with there is the management and staff of the Hellenic Club, who gave their premises free of charge for the event. I also mention Bendigo Bank, the Brassey of Canberra, Cricket ACT, Club Lime, University of Canberra Brumbies, the Canberra CityNews, Lion Co, La Scala Italian Restaurant, Belluci’s Restaurant, Caphs Cafe and Bar, John Hanna Fine Clothes for Men, Cape Cod Seafood Restaurant, Football Federation Australia, Legends Restaurant, Beess & Co Restaurant, IGA Yarralumla, ACT Olympic Council, SNP Security, and Lambert Vineyards.
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