Protection call for vulnerable adults like Ruby
A service devoted to protecting vulnerable adults could help prevent another murder like that of autistic woman Ruby Knox, advocates say.
The 20-year-old Blenheim woman was a large and sometimes violent non-verbal, autistic woman, with a severe intellectual disability as well as a raft of serious health problems. She was smothered to death in 2016 by her mother and sole caregiver Donella Knox, who later told authorities she felt abandoned by the medical fraternity.
While Knox was sentenced to four years in prison last year, the services used by Ruby and Knox were independently reviewed by leading paediatrician Dr Rosemary Marks for the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board.
Marks released her findings this week, saying that unless the Ministry of Health worked with all DHBs to ensure the needs of adults with disabilities were met, ‘‘there will be more Rubys’’.
She called for the Government to establish an adult safeguarding service, to protect vulnerable adults like Ruby.
‘‘If there had been an organisation like Oranga Tamariki to go to and have a more in-depth conversation, that may have gone some way to preventing this,’’ Marks said.
Autism New Zealand chief executive Dane Dougan backed Marks’s call. ‘‘There are families with adult autistic people who have nowhere to go, and no-one to turn to.’’