Boy forced to get around in wheelbarrow during months of NDIS delay

A young boy with cerebral palsy has been forced to get around in a wheelbarrow for months while the disability insurance agency decided on funding for a new wheelchair.

Nine-year-old Angus Hopkins has outgrown his old wheelchair, which is now too small and flimsy to transport him about his family’s Toowoomba property.

Gus is eligible for a motorised wheelchair, worth about $26,000, under the NDIS, but his family has faced months of red tape, meaning he’s been unable to do simple things like saddle his horse, walk his dog or check the mail.

“If he wants to go somewhere here, he's in his wheelbarrow, because it's safer,” his mother Jody Ezzy told 9News.

Ms Ezzy said after months of negotiations with the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) over Gus’s entitlements under the NDIS, she was told the decision could still be months or even years away.

Frustrated, she went public.

This morning she was contacted by the NDIA and told she would know the decision within a fortnight. By this afternoon, the agency had issued an apology and promised the wheelchair would be approved.

“We’re not asking for charity,” Ms Ezzy said. “We just need help.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced a disability royal commission, which is expected to include the NDIS.