Voiceover:   

Welcome to the Raw Nerve, the official podcast of MS Australia, a conversation space for all things multiple sclerosis.  Join us for news and views on the latest research, treatments and advocacy efforts, as well as candid and informative interviews with our community, those living with MS and their families and carers, together with leading clinicians, researchers and advocates.    

Jeremy Henderson  

Hello and welcome to The Raw Nerve. I’m your host, Jeremy Henderson. Today on The Raw Nerve, we’re spotlighting older people living with multiple sclerosis and the issues they face as we mark International Day of Older Persons, which is celebrated annually on the 1st of October. We’re going to explore multiple sclerosis, lived experience with MS as an older person, challenges and wins, and we’ll also talk about the role of MS Australia’s Lived Experience Expert Panel.  

International Day of Older Persons is dedicated to acknowledging the contributions of older people, addressing issues that affect their lives. This year’s theme is older persons driving local and global action, our aspirations, our wellbeing. Today, we’ll be speaking with two MS Australia LEEP members who represent the important cohort of older people living with MS. Let me welcome our first guest into the studio, passionate advocate, Vanessa Fanning from the Australian Capital Territory. Welcome to you, Vanessa.   

Vanessa Fanning  

Oh, hi, Jeremy. And thank you very much for inviting me to join your podcast.   

Jeremy Henderson  

Vanessa, I’m keen to hear about your lived experience with MS, your diagnosis journey, your experience and thoughts on the aged care system, and of course, about your advocacy. Firstly, I wonder if you’d like to share a little bit about your lived experience with MS including your initial diagnosis.   

Vanessa Fanning  

Okay. Well, thanks Jeremy. I was diagnosed with MS in my late forties, so a little bit later than a lot of people.  My symptoms at the time; I woke up, and I was numb from the waist down. So, I was off to see a neurologist in a fairly short period of time.  

Once I was diagnosed, I realized that I had experienced MS symptoms since my early twenties, possibly since my teens. I’d had disabling visual disturbances, neurologic pain, and a history of clumsiness, which my old school friends are fond of reminding me about.  I actually had no visible lesions at the time of my diagnosis. So, my then neurologist told me I had benign MS. Unfortunately, the concept of benign MS is a complete fiction.  

At the time of my diagnosis, I was a high-achieving career woman, very fit, energetic, capable, many diverse and challenging interests, including horse riding and breeding, off-road driving and camping, long-distance hiking. So, the diagnosis of MS really struck me.   

It took me years to come to terms with having a chronic and disabling illness.  I think it’s the image you have of yourself, and you think your friends have of you. And suddenly you feel like a different and diminished person.  And it took me quite a long time to realise that I was still me.  And when I was about 60, my MS became progressive and my mobility became increasingly impaired.  

I can still walk using two sticks, but my walking is incredibly slow. And I have very poor balance and like most people with MS, I also suffer from debilitating fatigue.  

Jeremy Henderson  

Vanessa, I wanted to talk to you about your experience as an older person living with MS today and navigating that and you’re navigating that stage of life at a time when your MS is at its worst. What has that journey been like?  

Vanessa Fanning  

Well, it’s sort of confronting.  I guess everyone experiences changes in what they can do as they age, albeit to a varying degree. But people living with a neurological condition, which attacks the functioning of the brain and the nerves in the spine, will inevitably experience additional impairments of any, or all of their limbs and bodily functions, not just their mobility.    

People think of MS often, I think, as a disease about mobility and they see people, you know, their image is someone in a wheelchair. But often the impairments and the difficulties experienced by people with MS are unrelated to mobility and even invisible so that a person might look totally well. These kinds of impairments because they’re neurological, they’re very costly and time consuming to manage and they require costly treatments and interventions that the typical older person will never need.  So, we often, particularly, I think when we reach this progressive stage, we often say that undertaking what you need to do to live well with MS or even to stop yourself going backwards is a full-time job.  

Jeremy Henderson  

 I wonder if you would be happy to share with us your experience with navigating the aged care system. How has that experience been for you and do you think that the aged care system meets the needs of older people with disability? What’s your experience been like?   

Vanessa Fanning  

Well, I was very frustrated by my experience with trying to navigate My Aged Care. MS is a progressive illness, so any disability that you have will inexorably progress.  And it’s vitally important to do whatever you can to manage your symptoms, to stay well, to  access and to undertake activities and therapies and use therapeutic or assistive devices that will maintain your strength, facilitate your independence, mitigate your symptoms, and  even slow the progression.   

So, the requirements of someone with MS are totally unlike those of a frail elderly person. My goals are to stay physically strong, continue my extensive voluntary work, remain as independent as possible and continue to participate actively in the community. And the NDIS supports these kind of goals. And this is what I wanted from my aged care. I feel particularly strongly about this because unlike the NDIS, my aged care packages are means tested and I have to contribute a substantial proportion of my budget myself in order to receive any financial support. As well as that, unlike the NDIS, my budget is capped.  I would certainly say as a disabled person, my needs are not age-related.  And I want to give you a couple of examples.  

I need an intensive exercise program designed and supervised by a neuro exercise therapist which specifically addresses my neurological deficits and maintains the strength of my muscles.  And I’m unable to undertake this kind of therapy without assistance and supervision. So, I currently have such a therapist who comes to my home three times a week. My aged care system had no provision to allow me to access this kind of therapy in my plan. Yet it is undoubtedly the key element which allows me to stay strong and independent.  It significantly mitigates any further deterioration in my mobility and upper-body strength, and it helps me preserve my hand function and dexterity so that I can undertake the tasks and responsibilities of daily living. It also helps alleviate the debility fatigue caused by MS. And there’s a huge scientific evidence base to support the efficacy of this kind of therapy.  

During the year that I was on the My Aged Care plan, I continued to use my therapist, but it wasn’t covered by my plan, and I bore the entire cost. And I should say, if I had used a My Aged Care-approved physiotherapist, the cost would have been astronomic to me and to the government. So, it just didn’t make any sense.  

Another therapy that I access is remedial massage. Now, people with MS typically develop severe muscle contraction and spasms, which can interrupt sleep, can be very painful and cause your mobility to further deteriorate.  As well as that, the gait, posture and balance problems associated with MS mean that many muscles become overworked and require remedial therapy.  

So, at the time I went on to My Aged Care, I had a remedial massage therapist who had over 20 years’ experience in specifically treating people with MS. I had a referral to her from my GP. However, I wasn’t allowed to incorporate treatment from her in my plan because the system required me to use a physiotherapist.  Even if I used a physiotherapist, there was an arbitrary cap on how many times I could use massage therapy because it was seen as a temporary requirement. The rules weren’t based on my needs.  They were based on arbitrary regulations. So, I actually tried the only massage therapist that I could find that met the criteria set by My Aged Care. She worked in a physiotherapy clinic and was priced accordingly.  

The first thing she told me was that she had never heard of MS. When I asked her if she was a full-time therapist, she told me that she was a barista and that she did massage therapy for two half days a week. So frankly, that treatment was not only a waste of time, it was incompetent and it made me feel worse.  

And a third example. I’m very committed to maintaining an evidence-based diet that’ll be beneficial to my MS. I’m not interested in the packaged food you can get under My Aged Care. I’m a good cook, but as my MS has progressed, I’m hampered by extreme fatigue and lack of strength and dexterity. I find cooking can be quite dangerous because I regularly cut or burn myself.  

I frequently drop food or implements and I’m liable to fall over on the tile floor. Help with meal prep was permitted under my plan, but the rules were that I had to participate in the meal prep and be in the same room. All sorts of arbitrary rules applied, restricting what I could ask for. And one of the worst aspects was that a different helper turned up every week.  

This meant that a lot of time was taken up starting from scratch, showing them where everything was, explaining what I needed help with. The workers were very nice and well-meaning, but most of them knew nothing about cooking and had negligible skills. I literally had to show one helper how to break an egg. She obviously had never cooked before. So, in summary, the service that was supposed to support me was frustrating, exhausting and stressful.  

Another major frustration for me was that my service provider was supposed to be managing my plan and in particular managing the support workers. Half the funding that I received had to be spent on management fees and I have to say I got no value out of that. It was always me that found the workers that I needed and me who organised the schedule.  

The only thing that my plan manager did was to tell me what I wasn’t allowed to spend my funds on.  

So to  summarise all that,  under the means test, I was required to contribute very substantially to the cost of the services that I required, but I was  prevented from accessing any of the services that I valued the most and the ones that were most beneficial to my health, wellbeing and quality of life. I did stick with the system for a full year.  

But by the end of the year, it was very clear to me that My Aged Care was harming my wellbeing and my budget rather than helping me with the cost of the assistance that I needed.  I think the current system is profoundly discriminatory. People with a non-age related disability who are forced to rely on My Aged Care face arbitrary restrictions on the types of services that they can access. The service is designed to cater for frailty and age-related decline. So, my access to assistive technology and devices was very limited. So compared with someone on the NDIS, I just couldn’t get the sort of assistive devices that somebody one month younger than me might be able to get.   

The budgets are capped and the categories of services and who can provide them are arbitrarily capped and categorised in a manner that makes them much more costly, less effective, restricts choice and favours certain classes of service providers who frequently don’t have the requisite skills and training. So, at the end of 12 months, I  surrendered my package,  and  I simply fund the help I need as best I can and  at least I have agency and choice about who I ask for help and what I ask them for.  

Jeremy Henderson  

So, Vanessa, you have very, very eloquently, I think, summed up the failings of the aged care system, of the My Aged Care system, particularly as it pertains to older Australians living with MS. And I think it’s that, as you’ve just rightly said, the My Aged Care system is not providing disability specific care. It is providing aged care and nor is the care provided commensurate with the level of care and funding that would be provided under the NDIS.    

And as you again have very clearly and rightly said, that is discriminatory. It is unfair.  And unfortunately, your experience is the experience of many, many older Australians living with NS.   

It’s the International Day of Older Persons 2025. What’s your message for decision makers, for people in government that have the opportunity to make this system better and make it fit for purpose?   

Vanessa Fanning  

Well, I think that what the government needs to recognise is that these days, 65 is pretty young.  you know, people at the age of 65 and certainly in my case, I was working part-time. I had a lot to contribute. I have skills. I have experience. I’m strong. I’m capable. I need support to deal with my disability, but it simply doesn’t make sense to treat older people who have so much to offer as if they’re unable to make choices, as if they’re unable to know what they need, as if somehow, they’re abusing the system. I think that if older people, especially those living with a disability, were able to access better support, they would have an enormous amount to contribute, and society and the taxpayer would benefit.  

Jeremy Henderson  

Vanessa, I wonder if I can ask you, what does the International Day of Older Persons represent to you? Why is such a day important?  

Vanessa Fanning  

Well, I think it’s really important that the dignity and achievements of older people are recognized. Different cultures treat older people differently. In some cultures, older people are very highly regarded and respected and treated as great treasures. I’m not sure that that’s true in Australia, but maybe we’re getting there. But I think we have a lot to contribute. There’s a lot of wisdom, a lot of energy, a lot of competence and capability.  

Even if, you know, living with a chronic illness, you have a lot to contribute.  And I think that is increasingly being recognised.  But it’s very, very important I think that people, older people are not neglected and  not put in situations where they’re suffering really. 

And there’s been a lot of exposure of what’s happening in aged care. And so, it’s a really important issue and it’s good to be reminded by having a day dedicated.  

I think I mentioned the theme this year. It speaks to our aspirations, our wellbeing. And I think that’s really talking about agency, isn’t it?  

Jeremy Henderson  

When it comes to agency, you’ve done some incredible advocacy work in the MS space, Vanessa. so, agency and having a voice is something really, really important to you?   

Vanessa Fanning  

Yeah, it certainly is. I’ve really devoted a lot of my time over the last 10 years, I guess,  since I retired from full-time work  and I’ve  turned my energy to advocating  on behalf  of people living with MS, particularly living with progressive MS. In the field of  MS,  a lot has been done to find treatments, effective treatments for relapsing remitting  MS. That’s the kind of MS that comes and goes and you might have a period of one or two years even without any symptoms and then something will happen. But when you have progressive MS, you’re deteriorating progressively. It’s inevitable. It’s inexorable. And it’s also very uncertain. You really don’t know how fast or how slow you’re going to progress and in what way. And it can have a huge impact on your quality of life.  

There really isn’t any understanding of why progression occurs, why people progress some faster than others, and  what it means to live with progressive MS. So, we’re looking for solutions for that. And I’ve been engaged in research, and I do think it’s absolutely vital that just like your lived experience expert panel that MS Australia runs, there are similar bodies around the world.  And increasingly, I think there’s been a whole paradigm shift in involving people with lived experience in research and advising policymakers, advising organizations that exist to support people with a given illness, in our case, MS. And to influence what kind of practices and research get priority because we really do understand it and sometimes, we have a perspective that  researchers or organisations don’t necessarily have until they hear it from the people who are actually living with the condition.  

Jeremy Henderson  

Vanessa, you’ve been volunteering in this advocacy space so passionately and with so much energy and so selflessly for so many years. Does that work energize you? What does that give you, that the work that you do and that big investment you’re making in this space?  

Vanessa Fanning  

Well, it’s kind of you to say that. And I would say without a doubt that despite having had a pretty interesting career, this is by far the most meaningful thing I’ve done in my life.  

And I’ve really found it rewarding. I can see that people like me are making a difference.  And I’ve met some fabulous people.  And I would urge anyone who has the time and the opportunity to try and get involved because it does give you hope, and it does enable you to not only to see, but to participate in a cure movement towards research that will lead to better wellbeing while we wait for a cure.     

Jeremy Henderson  

Vanessa, thank you. That’s a wonderfully positive note to leave this chat on. Can I thank our first guest, LEEP member, Vanessa Fanning. Thank you, Vanessa, for joining us on the Raw Nerve podcast and sharing your story. We’ll be back shortly with our next guest on the Raw Nerve.    

VO: You’re listening to the Raw Nerve, the official podcast of MS Australia, a conversation space for all things multiple sclerosis.  Subscribe to our podcast today at msaustralia.org.au forward slash podcast.  And now back to the show.  

Jeremy Henderson  

Hello and welcome back to the Raw Nerve. Today we’ve been talking about, and spotlighting older people living with MS and the issues they face as we mark international day of older persons. I’d now like to welcome our next guest into the studio to speak about his MS journey and lived experience.  MS Australia, LEEP member, Gavin Harper from Western Australia. Welcome to you, Gavin.   

Gavin Harper  

Thank you, Jeremy. Nice to be here. I’m certainly one of those older people with MS.  

Happy to join you.    

Jeremy Henderson  

It’s excellent to have you here. Gavin, I wonder if you’d like to share a little bit about your lived experience with MS, including your initial diagnosis.   

Gavin Harper  

Well, it was a long time ago. So, things were rather different. I’ve had MS for 52 years. I was first diagnosed in 1973 and in those days they didn’t have MRIs or anything like that. So, the initial diagnosis was also like how let’s wait and see if it happens again, type of basis, which it did. So, in 1976, I had a second relapse, and it was then formally diagnosed.  And I then lived with, I guess, relapsing remitting on and off, over the next half a century.    

I suppose I was able to live a full and relatively normal life, had a good career, moved around the world, four children. The MS was always there.  

Jeremy Henderson  

Sorry, Gavin, just jumping in. What was your career? What did you do for a living?    

Gavin Harper  

I was in the oil and gas industry. I started off in the UK and moved over to other countries and spent some time living in Korea and Australia and in the US.   

That was all interesting from a career perspective. From an MS perspective, it’s meant I’ve had MRIs and experienced MS treatment in four different continents, which is sort of interesting at a time when things were evolving rather rapidly.    

Certainly in the 1970s, there were virtually no treatments and no sophisticated equipment, whereas today there is a lot of progress being made.  So the MS has been a sort of constant shadow in my life, but  at the same time, normal life has proceeded, which has been good.  I’ve had this, I think pretty much the full range of typical symptoms that other people experience, fatigue and numbness and partial disability at times and all those things have come and gone.  And they leave a scar behind sometimes, which I think pretty much, my experience would be fairly typical for a lot of people.    

Jeremy Henderson  

Gavin, I wonder about whether you can talk to me about your experience as an older person living with MS and how that has now maybe changed.  

Gavin Harper  

To a large extent,  it’s the same stuff,  a little bit worse.  I think there’s a good debate going on in the world.  Is it MS or is it old age?  Some of the very similar symptoms  of  fatigue and mobility, vision, hearing, speech, bowel and bladder, they’re all things that get affected. As old age comes in, I’m 72 now. That’s why the doctor says to me,  you’re not old, but you’re not young anymore. That’s very true.  

I suppose collectively the symptoms make community interaction difficult. That’s probably something I’ve noticed.  Isolation, partly because of retirement,  but also because of  MS and mobility and fatigue and so on.  It’s much harder to get out into the community and do things.  

I guess with friends and family, I probably have to cancel a lot of things at short notice, which becomes a bit antisocial after a while.  But that goes with the territory.  I suppose one of the other things to think about with old age is there’s no cure for old age, nor is there for MS.  You have to go through life at this stage  with an acceptance that probably things aren’t going to get a whole lot better.  Realistically, a lot of things will get worse.  That doesn’t mean you can’t alleviate symptoms  through ongoing physio and  attitude adjustment and so on.  But it’s not realistic to think that there’s some magic cure  going to fix everything.  

There just isn’t a cure for old age. So I think instead,  as an older person with MS,  I look to the MS community,  people like MSWA that I’m involved with, supervised specialist,  allied health professionals,  specialist carers,  domestic assistants,  specialist nurses.  I think all those things become  more and more important  as you get a bit older.  

Jeremy Henderson  

Gavin, you mentioned that question that you have is  a symptom that you might be experiencing. Is it MS  or is it  a factor of  getting older?  And  how do you work your way through that in terms of maybe not dismissing something or not ignoring something, but also recognizing that it may not be MS, it may just be a function of aging. How do you make sure that you’re always advocating when speaking to health professionals and telling them about something that you might think maybe, is this MS? How do you navigate that?  

Gavin Harper  

Yeah, look, I don’t know the answer to that. I think  as a general guide, if  it goes away, it was probably MS, and if it doesn’t go away, it was probably age.  That’s rather a slow process  to wait and see.  Very often the treatments are the same,  the reactions are the same.  All the good things that you do in life, exercise and healthy diet,  are  likely to help MS and are likely to help  old age symptoms.    

So I think  you keep on doing the sensible things and wait and see what happens. I’m not on any disease modifying therapy. So the only treatment I take is living healthy itself.   

Jeremy Henderson  

Gavin, now I understand you have a home care package. I wonder whether you’d be happy to talk a little bit about that and any of the gaps in the services or funding that you are experiencing as a result of being someone who’s over 65 who can’t actually access the NDIS, but has to rely on the aged care system for the support they receive.  

Gavin Harper   

I guess I would start by saying that I think the home care package is a very positive thing. It provides a lot of help and a lot of everyday living assistance, domestic or cleaning or gardening or physiotherapy, podiatrists, all those things  are extremely useful and very helpful. So  I think the home care package is something that  should be built on  and kept flexible, not chipped away by constant reviews that  seem to be  chipping away some of the benefits.  Having said that, I think  at the higher end of expenditure for people with  extensive needs.  There’s a very definite gap between what the NDIS could provide and what the home care package provides.  I think that sort of inequity  is a very real problem  for people with higher care needs  and  one that should be addressed.  

I think the  attitudes  around NDIS or home care needs to shift. I guess for me  it’s very important to have a thing like home care package, but it’s not some sort of reward or funding luxury in life.  It’s very real help with basic needs that make life a lot easier, a lot more tolerable, where otherwise it would be quite difficult.  

Safety, independence  are things that people value.  I certainly value those things more as I get older.  I think the home care package needs to be future focused, not always looking backwards and shipping away at eroding benefits. Rather, we should be looking to see what things are going to be more important to going forward.  I suppose things like IT needs, know, AI has got huge potential to help manage both medical research at one end, but also simple tasks like arranging home help.  I think keeping an open mind about  using home care packages for uh telecommunications needs, things like this call we’re having now is important to have; equipment like this, it’s important to have access to online banking.  

Because these aren’t luxuries when you can’t get out of the house because of the MS, they become necessities and the home care world, I guess, should evolve to embrace some of that future technology, I suppose.  

Obviously, this assistive technology that comes with home care packages is very helpful and that needs to be kept.  I’d like to see, like I say, more  focus on things like home safety and independence  and security.  Those are important things  for someone at my stage of life.  

Jeremy Henderson  

Thank you, Gavin. Gavin, I wonder if I can ask you a question.  International Day of Older Persons. This year’s theme is older persons driving local and global action, our aspirations, our wellbeing and our rights. I’m just wondering what that theme represents to you. It’s obviously speaking to this idea of independence and agency and  having that voice.  How important is that to you? How does that theme speak to you?   

Gavin Harper  

Yeah. It’s a  slightly complicated theme,  it all sounds good.  Look,  for me,  it’s  emphasizing  the world should, should listen to all people have got to say that there’s a lot of experience out there. And people have, I’ve lived their lives and have learned to cope with different challenges along the way; listen to what they’ve got to say, listen to what’s important to them, listen to what challenges they’re facing now.   

That  community of all the people,  I’ve been amazed within fellow MS people here in Perth, just how rich the experiences  and  how skilled a lot of the people are that have MS. They’re not just a bunch of old fuddy-duddy wandering around on walking frames.  

There’s a lot of people around who have a lot to contribute to the world. Each person’s views and opinions are important to help contribute and  to listen to them and embrace what they’re saying.  

I suppose  if I reflect on what the 50 years I’ve had to live with MS, there’s been a huge change in the medical treatment, the research, the prevention, the different ways of managing that. It hasn’t produced a cure yet, but there’s a lot of things happening on the prevention and early diagnosis runs and certainly ongoing treatment. All that’s happened because of the funding support that’s been available over the last half century to support different kinds of initiatives. Keep that going, it is so important. Keep it in my view, a dual focus on both on the medical side, keep the research going, keep looking for a cure, let’s keep looking for  prevention. But at the same time,  in parallel with that, keep that focus on everyday living and allied health and the things that make life tolerable, improve the quality of life and independence for the people.  So  they’re all part of  the things that matter.  So under this day of older people. Yeah, just keep an ear open, see what all the people are going to say, respond to it. And that’ll help guide  the next wave of research and development.  

Jeremy Henderson  

Thanks Gavin. Talking about all the people with valuable things to contribute and to say; you are one of those people and you’re one of the newest members of the MS Australia Lived Experience Expert Panel. So welcome and thank you for the contribution that you are currently making to the LEEP. I wonder if you can tell me about your own passion for advocacy and why you decided to join the LEEP?.  

Gavin Harper  

I suppose I got involved a bit helping with MSWA, in their efforts to involve the client community more. So I’ve tried to play an active role  in that.  And that  led me towards MS Australia and the LEAP.  

I think it’s that people have got so much to contribute with it. I think, like I said before, the more people you involve with a broad range of experience, the more likely you are to have perspectives that guide towards a good solution.  So, I think being part of that, I’d like to see that expand. Everyone’s experience is a little bit different. The common themes come from the more people you involve, the more ideas will come through. So that’s why I want to be involved and hopefully can make some difference. But I think there’s a lot of other people out there that can also help.  

Jeremy Henderson  

Excellent. Do you think our political leaders and other decision makers, do you think they recognise now the importance of actually listening to that lived experience voice?   

Gavin Harper  

No. I don’t. I think they do. It’s, like I say, it’s important to continue conveying that the help that we get is not some sort of luxuries in life. Maintaining a viable sector of where help is available to people with MS is just so important and the pricing structures, whether it’s NDIS or home care, or what’s it called now, support at home.  For goodness sake, don’t create these things and then put price caps in place. That means that the providers go bankrupt or exit the sector, which is what’s happening right now. So, maintain a viable health and support sector.  And that matters for people.  

We have the basics of that there, but it needs to be sustainable.  We need to have enough revenue in the system to provide for staff training, for new equipment, for research.  All that stuff needs to keep going.  So, keep the funding going. Don’t look on that as successive governments have – that NDIS or home care is an area to cut back and increase budget revenue, that’s not the right approach towards what can we do to help all people? What sort of extra care is required?  Listen to the voices and make sure that the infrastructure and the funding is there to support that.   

Jeremy Henderson  

I completely agree. I think too often, Gavin, I think you’ve been saying this repeatedly, the focus is on the costs rather than on the benefits. You know, there’s too often a short-term view of what this is costing instead of taking a longer term view and looking at the benefits and the cost savings over time. Uh, and the differences we’re making to improving people’s lives. I absolutely agree with everything you’re saying. Gavin, just to close out this, uh, this conversation, just give and to make sure we give you the last word. What would you like to see as a result of this focus on older persons during International Day of Older Persons. What kind of change would you like to see or difference off the back of this International Day?    

Gavin Harper  

Look, it’s generally not a step change I’m looking for. It’s a continuation of going in the right direction, I think. I have MS and I vote is a good slogan.  

Politicians need to understand that there’s a lot of us out here.  Keep on supporting independence, that really matters to people. Keep them being safe. As you get older, things like security and mobility matter more and more. So, keep providing help with that. It’s a truism, it’s good general health improves life.  So, keep providing this sort of support to arrange physiotherapy and allied health and domestic care.  All the little things in life make life a lot easier. So I would just say keep doing, stop looking at it as something to chip away at, turn the attitude around to what more can we do to help?    

Jeremy Henderson  

Gavin. That’s a great note to end on. Gavin, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.  Thank you for being so generous with your time and sharing your knowledge and your lived experience with us on the Raw Nerve today.  

Gavin Harper  

Thank you.  

VO: Thanks for listening to the Raw Nerve, the official podcast of MS Australia.  

To hear more, subscribe to our podcast today at msaustralia.org.au/podcast.