Ron Melehan

Listen to Ron’s interview

Ron’s Journey

Ron’s loyalty to people was obvious to Headway ADP from the outset. Headway ADP quickly tuned into the fact that Ron kept in touch with the Liverpool Hospital Acquired Brain Injury Unit for assistance with his splint, botox injections, and probably most critically, Diane Martin, who is a Registered Nurse and has been a mainstay of Ron’s medical supports for many years.

What Di was seeking on Ron’s behalf, was a service that could listen to Ron’s needs, advocate on his behalf, and allow him to engage with medical supports and the community on his own terms. Ron knows what he wants in life and has shown the ability to set clear goals and work towards achieving them through his NDIS funds.

Ron has been prepared to work closely with the whole Headway ADP team to address some of the major risks in his daily life including personal care, mobility, and food preparation. Most of these risks relate to factors concerning balance and hemiplegia, resulting in fatigue and a much higher risk of falls. We acknowledge that Ron is a survivor, tough and determined, but with a heart bigger than Phar Lap when it comes to his beloved animals. He loves social outings to parks, local markets, and places of interest.

What we have seen over the past 3 years is the ability of Ron to work with supports to get results.

Ron has amazing insight and a practical approach to problems, that enables him to use our Service effectively to improve his life. Through discussion and advocacy, he has been able to achieve a significant upgrade to his apartment and more recently, Headway worked with Ron and the Department of Housing to finally have his hot water heater replaced and installed outside of his apartment, addressing a nagging issue of internal flooding, that Ron had raised years earlier.

Ron is now supported to do the activities he wants to do.  He now has support to do shopping without the high risk of falls and the exhaustion of repeat trips due to him only having one functional arm. He sees community-based therapists and now has support to engage with the NSW Health System when he needs to, on his terms.

Ron loves engagement throughout Sydney, and he loves languages. His ability to meet, greet and engage people of various cultural backgrounds is quite amazing. What sums up Ron best of all is his humility. If you ask Ron who his best worker is he will always say “everyone”. Ron will however, state how much he feels Headway ADP have improved his life. He is a true NDIS success story, and we all recognise, how much he has achieved over the past 3 years.