If you have a child with a disability, you’ll know first hand the hardship both emotionally and financially on you and the family. Medical fundraising is a new way for families and loved ones to support a child with a disability further. Although there are a few disability support services and financial assistance options, medical fundraising provides a quick and easy way for loved ones to gain financial support in an emergency or for any large out of pocket costs that are unexpected.

Statistics on a Child with a Disability in Australia

There are a lot of different kinds of disabilities that affect children in Australia. Disabilities can range from affecting a child’s health, movement, communication and learning abilities while having a profound effect on their education and social engagement. For families raising children with disabilities, it can become quite demanding emotionally, physically and financially.

Plus it can also have a major toll on how the family functions in their daily lives. According to a report in 2009 around 4 million Australians were reported having some sort of disability out of which 290000 were children from the age of 0 to 14. Many of these were being raised by single parents who need additional help in coping with the medical expenses for their children.

The most common types of disabilities that children across Australia face are as follows:

Autism and related disorders: One out of every tenth child suffers from autism in Australia, with boys more likely to suffer from autism than girls. According to a report about 17% of boys ranging from 0 to 14 years of age suffer from autism when compared to girls whose figures stand at 6.9%.

Treatments are available across Australia which helps children suffering from this disease. But the cost of treating an autistic child may go from $30000 to $50000 a year accord to the Autism Awareness Australia.

Asthma: Asthma is known to be the second most common disability for children in Australia. This can also become quite a heavy burden on families of the affected child both physically as well as financially with expenses going up to $900 per month.

It is believed according to a research report by the University of Western Australia that these numbers have risen almost 30% given the hike in medication prices. The report also stated that the number of prescriptions filled were also extremely less following the increase in prices.

Other common disabilities: Other disabilities for children in Australia include speech difficulties, ADHD, and other behavioural disorders but the above mentioned display the highest statistics.

Other statistics have also shown that many households where there is a child with a disability are single-parent based homes, reside in a broken home structure, or live in poverty. Consequently, it becomes hard for children with a disability to access proper medical treatment and care long term. Caretakers will therefore find it difficult to allocate time for doctor visits and other medical services as finding employment that is flexible enough is one of the biggest challenges.

How Medical Fundraising can help give Financial Support

For parents of a child with a disability who are facing a financial crisis, there are a lot of different financial assistance options within Australia that they can look into. One such option is raising funds through medical fundraising.

Medical fundraising is an option to raise funds for the treatment of a patient suffering from a disability or disease which they or their family may not be able to afford on their own. In this case medical fundraising is one of the best options for single parents, care takers or families who require financial assistance to help take care of their disabled child.

Medical fundraising such as online fundraising helps parents raise enough funds easily without too much complication or overwhelming paper work and all in a short span of time.

Benefits of Medical Fundraising

There are a lot of different benefits that one might receive while using a medical fundraising website that is used in covering the cost of their medical bills. Some of these can be summarised below:

• Such fundraising programs allow the families of disabled children to raise funds that they require for the medical treatment of their child in not only a short period of time but in a more effective way to reach a huge number of people both online and offline when compared to many other forms of financial assistance options.

• Medical fundraising also grants fundraisers the freedom of control and full access to on how the funds should be raised. When compared to many other financial assistance programs, the individuals running the medical fundraisers have the option to decide on how the funds would best be used for the treatment of their disabled child for a much better outcome.

• When compared to many other financial assistance programs, medical fundraising costs almost no money at all. Preparing for a traditional fundraising program can itself be quite expensive and is limited to only a specific crowd (mostly within the community). On the other hand online medical fundraising offers parents a much more cost effective method to raise funds for their disabled child. It also gives them an opportunity to reach those donors which usually traditional fundraising may not be able to reach, such as through online social networks like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

• Traditional methods of fundraising such as events, auctions and stalls are highly dependent on time and location. As such there is a restriction on when and where fundraising can take place. Often, this method passes on those donors who are unable to be at the event at the given time. Medical fundraising, on the other hand defies these restrictions and makes the fundraiser more accessible to people regardless of their respective location or time. All it takes is a few clicks on the computer or any other device and funds can be donated to the specific cause.

• One of the most important factors besides raising funds is time for the fundraisers. Online medical fundraising lets parents of the disabled child update their donors, networks and supporters about the situation of the disabled child in no time at all therefore letting the loved ones concentrate more on the donations.

This is why medical fundraising is becoming a very popular fund raising concept for loved ones with a child with a disability in Australia.

References:

1. Cost of autistic Children Cripples Parents up to $50,000 a Year: http://www.news.com.au/national/cost-of-autistic-children-cripples-parents-up-to-50000-a-year/story-e6frfkvr-1226269021201

2. Australian Bureau of Statistics: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features30Jun+2012

3. Cost of Asthma Management: http://www.asthmaaustralia.org.au/onAIR/Cost_of_asthma_management.aspx

4. Quality of Life Single Mothers with Disabled Children: http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/quality-life-single-mothers-disabled-children-14560.html