Disability workers are leaving in droves, with advocates calling for a $5 an hour pay rise to reverse a major workforce crisis.
Australia already has a disability staff shortfall of 100,000 positions, which only threatens to worsen as one in four workers plans to leave the sector, a Health Services Union discussion paper revealed.
At the same time, the National Disability Insurance Scheme has continued to grow, creating a perfect storm that could have a "catastrophic" impact on the hundreds of thousands of Australians that rely on the NDIS.
"There is a major crisis developing in the attraction and retention of disability support workers," HSU National Secretary Lloyd Williams told reporters in Canberra on Monday.
"We will have more workers leaving the system, less workers coming in, less continuity of care, more casualisation to fill the gap.
"It will only get worse and that will mean - for people with a disability - less choice of the workers that they want to support them, and less continuity of support and care."
Though many find it rewarding, workers are given significant responsibility and large caseloads while working in isolated environments with little support from supervisors.
About seven in 10 feel emotionally drained and about two in five feel burnt out at least half of the time.
John Jones, a disability worker from Hobart, says there is a lot to deal with.
"We're constantly short on staff, we get abused - I've been punched several times - and I've had to deal with palliative care as well," he told reporters.
"You take that home with you.
"It's a lot and you don't fully recover from that."
Career mobility in the disability support sector is also limited as ongoing training options are rare, of varying quality and largely unfunded.
One in four workers say they struggle to see themselves in the sector in five years' time.
"I would love to work in this very sector my whole life, but I don't know where the options are," Melbourne-based support worker Sam Galvin said.
"I want more people to have more positive experiences, both workers and those we support, but unless there is change that isn't going to happen.
The union wants the government to raise wages for disability workers by $5 an hour.
This would improve staffing levels, supervision, training and general working conditions and cost $900 million over three years.
The federal government has already funded pay rises for aged care workers for $11.3 billion over four years, and childcare staff at a cost of $3.6 billion over two years.
"It is not acceptable that the NDIS workers who make a difference to people's lives should miss out," said Mr Williams.
"It's time to correct that and properly reward disability support workers for the difference they make."
