There are so many things that we in the brain injury community need, or some
ofus need. Each person has different needs, to be sure.

Just generally speaking, I would like to say that people in our community need a
full continuum of services. First, in the medical arena, start
withstate-of-the-art acute services, subacute services, and rehabilitation
services.(Many communities don't have any of it. Some have acute, but not the
rest of it,etc.) There needs to be insurance coverage for all of these things,
and for
long-term care where required. Also, after people move on from the immediate
crisis, in many cases people need a doctor who is a specialist in brain
injuryand also even a general doctor who will take Medicare (USA),
Medical(California, USA), Medicaid (USA), because in many communities the
doctors and clinics that will take these forms of reimbursement are few or
nonexistent.

Getting into the community reintegrative side of it, people need
counseling,family support, respite care, in-home care and adult day care.
Sometimes people need nursing home care, but more often they need assisted
living with supports,because people don't want to stay in nursing home care. So,
there needs to be appropriate accessible, affordable housing. Sometimes
community supports are
needed such as help paying bills, going grocery shopping, paratransit, help
dealing with county departments (filling out paperwork, etc., for government
programs).

People need physical therapy, cognitive therapy, occupational therapy, speech
therapy, but the issue has always been who will pay for it. Vocational programs.
(Society is big on that last one, anyway.)

People with ABI shouldn't be hidden away in either nursing homes or mental
health facilities, or for that matter, in jails, prisons, or under bridges
because society doesn't know what to do, or really, doesn't care to pay to help
our population. Yes, I mean the homeless people with brain injury, but I mean
the rest of us, too. But, about the homeless with brain injury, they are in for
a very tough time of it because they have no support system worth diddily squat.

Every town needs some kind of support group for people with ABI. Oh yeah, sure
on that one. (I am being sarcastic. Frankly, most of these things on the wish
list have been on the wish list for years, and nobody pays for all of this
stuff, so that is the problem.)

Where there are programs operated by service providers, they must be safe
programs with protocols. There must be accountability somehow to ensure our
community members are not taken advantage of.