The Forgotten

Reporter: Edwina Bartholomew
Producer: Niki Hamilton

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Jock Watson loved a good time.

Edwina Bull: Everyone loves Jocko. He’s the life of the party, you could hear him from a mile away.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- We went to uni together. He was a great mate to everyone, including me.

Jane Watson- We have this expression in the family that you’ve got ticker and Jock had a big ticker, a huge heart.

Jock Watson- Are you Edwina?

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Yep. That’s right.

Jock: You’re my uni friend.

EEDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- That’s right. We went to uni together.

Jock Watson- Edwina. That was a smile, sorry.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- In 2003, a car accident left him with him with a severe brain injury.

At 22 Jock was placed in a nursing home.

Mathew Love- These are not pleasant places to be and it’s not pleasant that he has to be there. It’s just awful.

Tom Watson- It’s pretty much all old people, not to be too blunt but they’re on their death bed pretty much.

Bronwyn Morkham- These young people see more death in the time they're in a nursing home than any of us would expect to see in a life time.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Was a nursing home the only option you had?

Jane Watson- Yes there’s just no any other facility that supplies fulltime care to somebody like Jock.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Jane is Jock’s mum.

The accident was Jock’s fault and in New South Wales at the time there was no insurance, no compensation, Jane was on her own.

She tried hundreds of nursing homes before she found one that would take her son.

Jane Watson- He’s aware something’s not right. You don’t lose intelligence when you have brain damage you lose processing capacity but intellect is still there. So in those moments he’ll ask the question, ‘what am I doing here, why am I here?’ so I’ll say you’ve had a car accident and you’ve got brain damage.

The first impression, so many tubes going in, so many tubes coming out. All you wanted was for him to wake up, for him to survive.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- This room is Jock’s whole world for the past 5 years. It’s heartbreaking to see him here.

Jock Watson- 5 years?
EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Yes five years mate. And even worse to think he could be here for the rest of his life.

Jane Watson- It’s not good to see how he is, but he’s here. The nursing home staff are just wonderful and are just lovely to Jock. They’re very accommodating to us and Jock’s needs. But, yes as you cycle down the corridors with the older people in beds and unwell and then you notice that the bed last week, is filed by somebody else this week. You realise you’re in a place where people die rather than live.

Bronwyn Morkham- Australia is a wealthy country. It’s extraordinary we have this situation still existing. We think that every day there are at least 4 or 5 young people who are injured or become ill through neurological diseases who will end up in a situation like Jock in a nursing home.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Bronwyn Morkham heads the Young People in Nursing Homes Alliance. And in Australia, there are six and a half thousand young men and women like Jock living in aged care. There’s nowhere else for them to go. It’s a national disgrace.

What’s wrong with the system?

Bronwyn Morkham- The system is broke and broken. It can't deal with the needs these young people have. It can't provide the rehabilitation they require, it can't provide the care and life time support they need and it can't help them reach their potential.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- How would you describe the nursing home?

Angela Barker- Pure hell.

Helen Barker- When she was very headstrong and very independent.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Six years ago Anj Barker was a spirited teenager, growing up in Benalla in country Victoria.

Helen Barker- She was a bit difficult. She just liked the wrong boys. If she didn’t like boys she would’ve been fine.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- At 16 her boyfriend beat her up.

What do you remember about the attack?

Angela Barker- He strangled me and repeatedly bashed my head on the steel park bench.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- And he kicked you in the face too, didn’t he?

Angela Barker- Yeah he jumped on my cheek snapping my jaw.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- How do you feel about him now?

Angela Barker- Hate is the word that springs to mind. I hate him and think he deserves to die.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- That moment changed her life?

Helen Barker- It changed the whole life of all of us and it’s been a very different life then what I expected to be living with my daughter who I gave birth to that was so beautiful.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Were you given any hope?

Helen Barker- The only thing the hospital said was that Anj was going to be in a vegetative state for life and that she would need to go to a nursing home.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- You became more and more aware of your situation. What did you start to realise in the nursing home? Old people?
Angela Barker- Yeah, old people.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Any young people in there?

Angela Barker- No I was the only one. I was only 16.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- 16 years old?

Angela Barker- In a nursing home.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- It was the only place she could live that was close to rehab in Melbourne.

Her recovery was painful and expensive.

Helen Barker- She could have been walking and doing things years ago, if she could have continued with intensive rehab.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Her parents could barely afford it and there was little government assistance.

Helen Barker- I can’t understand why they save lives if they are not going to help them get better. They might as well leave them on the streets to just die at the time than putting families through that and saying there is nothing we can and now, she can live in a nursing home. That is not living.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Anj hated it so much, she’s now back in Benalla. Her Mum and Dad couldn’t stand to see her so unhappy. Their lives now revolve around her care, including rehab in the carport.

Ian Barker- You’ve just got to think laterally because we’re fairly under resourced, you know you’ve got to do things yourself.

Helen Barker - I sometimes just come out and just cry because it just think oh you know, how can you keep pushing her to do this.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- And what do you do in those moments?

Helen Barker- I go and sit in my room on the edge of my bed and have a little cry. Look out my window and take some time for a few minutes and get back into it.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Would it be good if she could live where she has 24/7 care but living with people her own age?

Helen Barker- That would be beautiful wouldn’t it to have her to be able to live where she wants to live, with people her own age.

Hamish Farndon- St Martins Court has given me my life back.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Like Jock and Anj, Hamish has an acquired brain injury.

He now lives in St Martin’s Court in Melbourne, one of the only places in Australia where young disabled people can live together.

What does St Martin’s Court give you back that you didn’t have in a nursing home?

Hamish Farndon- Independence.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- What are you growing, Robbie?


Robbie- Strawberries.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- What else?

Robbie- Parsley.

The difference between here and a nursing home is just incredible. They are out in the sun, living their lives, enjoying themselves, playing their own music, things we take for granted. Did you find a strawberry yet?

Bronwyn Morkham- We had to actually work to find the money to build that. We had to get philanthropic dollars in, we got a tiny piece of government money to go towards it but basically we had to make development happen.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Eleven full-time residents pool their pensions to fund their 24 hour care, including rehabilitation.

The live in their own one bedroom units and decide how their life is run.

Resident- We’ve got nothing on Brad and Angelina mate!

Jock Watson- Are you getting all this on video, all this dodgy shit?

Jane Watson- Excuse me, Jock, look at me, this is rehab.

Bronwyn Morkham- The things these young people need costs money and we need to find way of doing that.

Jane Watson- Stop whinging, we’re doing a good job.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Where do you think he’d be now if you’d gone through that rehab the whole time?

Jane Watson- I think he’d be perhaps without the pain he’s in, he’d be more upright so he wouldn’t have pressure on points where he has them now.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- But the nursing home obviously just can’t cater to this.

Jane Watson- Oh no and it’s not their responsibility either they just basically give him 24 hour care.

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Jock is clearly happiest out of the nursing home. That’s when you see him come alive, in the company of friends his own age.

Mathew Lennox- He still enjoys a taste of beer now and then so as long as you’re just sitting around having a laugh with him, he really responds to that really well, it’s really good.

Bri McFarlane- Each time he goes through therapy, he gets better and better and more of his personality comes back. Every time he smiles that’s when I think we see the old Jocko.

Jane Watson- He has a contribution to people’s lives, I think that’s how we need to look at it.
He gives to others so he’s worthwhile.

Bronwyn Morkham- How can we leave these young people, how can we leave them?

EDWINA BARTHOLOMEW- Why do you like butterflies so much Anj?

Angela Barker- Well they come from a cocoon which is how I was when I was in hospital and then gradually they get to spread their wings and fly away and that’s what I’m doing.