 for me and he felt the self patient centre that was in get up nursing home and there was endless dropping so you know it was close enough that you were thinking gosh I hope my house is okay. It was really difficult. My name is Denise Lamble and I work for Gippsland disability advocacy program. I'm an advocate for people with disabilities and we're here today at the site of the evacuation centre from the bushfires that happened at the end of 2019 and January in 2020. And so I came across Dell who she was right here she was unloaded from a maxi taxi in her electric wheelchair and was just sitting there in the in her chair and not knowing what to do and where to go and when I spoke with her I said you know where are you looking at going she said I have no idea I can't I don't know where I'm going I was just told I had to evacuate to to the relief centre here. There were no motel rooms there was nothing available and so I thought I'll just try a bit further afield and and rang an information line in sale and got on to the Freemasons homes in sale and the woman there that said that she had a bed for Dell and the problem with Dell was that she hadn't had an ACAS assessment which is an aid care assessment so the cost of staying in a nursing home is quite prohibitive if you haven't had that ACAS assessment and we didn't have the paperwork we needed the medication lists from her fortunately her doctor the doctor on call from her clinic was was available and he faxed through a medication chart to the nursing home who then agreed to waive the high cost of the nursing home accommodation for her and and then we had to we got the maxi taxi we rang for a maxi taxi again the cost of the taxi fare was going to be prohibitive Dell was really concerned about the cost of that but the taxi company agreed to waive the cost of that which was fantastic oh she was just wonderful after a couple of hours she found me spotted the Freemasons nursing home in sale I was very lucky that I encountered people who went the extra mile to get me in a position where I was safe and comfortable I was there for about a week and then I came home because the threat had passed I think people with disabilities particularly who didn't have alternative advocates or people that could take them in were really forgotten in the mayhem of of the chaos of the fires and the evacuation