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The family of a disabled Brisbane man says he was left without support funding for five weeks after the National Disability Insurance Scheme took months to review his case.

Christian Dean, 22, was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy at the age of six.

The degenerative disorder – which causes wasting of the muscles – is terminal, with doctors originally telling his family he would likely only live until he was about 16.

READ MORE: Report on 'horrific' abuse suffered by disabled Australians

Mr Dean is now unable to walk, eat or swallow on his own and needs one-on-one care, 24 hours a day in his home.

A small, family-run disability support service, called Evolving Support Services, has been providing carers to meet Mr Dean's needs at the recommended NDIS rates.

After electing to self-manage his own NDIS plan, Mr Dean noticed last August the funding for his core support services, which he uses to pay his carers, was on track to run out within a few months.

Emails sent by Mr Dean to the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) – seen by nine.com.au – show he first contacted them about his concerns on August 7 last year.

On the agency's advice he then requested a review of his NDIS plan on August 21.

In an email on September 29, Mr Dean informed the NDIA his funding had run out.

"My funding has completely run out and I need an urgent review of my funding. This has been requested multiple times in the past eight weeks!" he wrote.

However, the requested review did not take place until almost a month later on October 26.

As a result of the review, the NDIA implemented a new funding plan for Mr Dean, which started on November 3.

'It was a no-brainer'

When Mr Dean ran out of support funding, Evolving Support Services made a decision to continue providing care for him.

"If we weren't good people and we were just worried about where the money was coming from we could have taken our support out of there at any time," Letia Donnelly, who runs the business with her father, said.

"But for us it was a no-brainer. If it happened again then we would still do it.

"We would make sure he was looked after because that's the right thing to do."

Ms Donnelly said her company had provided $70,000 worth of services to Mr Dean which the NDIS was now refusing to pay.

Mr Dean's mother Louise said she was enormously grateful to Ms Donnelly's company for the care they had provided her son.

"This wonderful company has gone above and beyond to keep Christian safe and cared for. They just took that on out of their own heart," Mrs Dean said.

"I'm afraid of what would have happened if they hadn't done what they did. I'm afraid that Christian wouldn't have made it through."

A spokesperson for the NDIA said the agency always worked to respond as quickly as possible when a review has been requested.

"The agency apologises for any distress caused to Mr Dean, where he did not receive an immediate response," the spokesperson said.

"The NDIA acknowledges Mr Dean's core supports funding was used as of late September, however some funding was available in other areas of Mr Dean's overall plan."

But Ms Donnelly said while it was true funds from other categories in Mr Dean's plan could be used, he had less than $8000 in total of funding left, which would not have met his support needs.

Hospital stay complicates care

Mr Dean's mother, Louise, said it was as her son's funding was running out in August that his condition started to deteriorate further, making it necessary for a second carer to come to their home for six hours a day to help him in and out of his wheelchair as well as provide personal care.

This extra carer was not yet approved in Mr Dean's NDIA plan, however was requested as part of his review.

In September, Mr Dean began having trouble breathing and was taken to the Prince Charles Hospital.

"Christian ended up in an emergency situation and went straight to the hospital in an ambulance," Mrs Dean said.

For three of the five weeks that Mr Dean was without NDIS support funding he was in hospital.

According to an agreement made by the State and Federal Governments when the NDIS was set up, hospitals are responsible for all patient care during their admission.

"It is important to note that Mr Dean continued to receive appropriate care – through the health system – while in hospital," an NDIA spokesperson said.

However, Mr Dean's parents said they were extremely concerned there were not enough nurses in the thoracic ward to meet his one-on-one care needs.

A spokesperson for the Metro North Hospital and Health Service confirmed to nine.com.au the nurse to patient ratio in the Prince Charles Hospital's thoracic ward is 3:6.

However, the spokesperson referred all other questions about Mr Dean's care to the NDIA.

"It would be unsafe in my opinion without his carer there in the hospital to support the staff," Mr Dean's father Aaron said.

"It's impossible. You can't leave that room because his saliva needs suctioning every three to four minutes.

"There is also his cough assist machine that needs to be operated by two people and takes about 20 minutes."

Aaron Dean said a lack of coordination between the State and Federal Governments since the introduction of the NDIS had caused problems for patients like his son with high-level needs.

"Before the NDIS, when it was state-based funding, the carers were still funded while Christian was in hospital," he said.

Ultimately, Evolving Support Services provided one carer for six hours per day while Mr Dean was in hospital to help meet his care needs.

Disability service 'still owed $70,000'

Ms Donnelly said she had made numerous appeals to the NDIA to reimburse her company for the services they provided to Mr Dean.

The added expenses had "almost crippled" the small company, she said.

"We did go into debt ourselves to cover the cost," she said.

"NDIA's response to our complaints was that due to the lack of legislation allowing them to back date payments it is 'reasonable' to not pay for the services provided," she said.

A spokesperson for the NDIA said: "Retrospective approval of supports is not permissible under the NDIS Act."

In response to the NDIA's refusal to reimburse her company, Ms Donnelly made a complaint to the disability watchdog, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, which found it was outside their scope to investigate.

Mrs Dean said it was vital the NDIA reimbursed Evolving Support Services.

"The NDIS need to fix this. If it wasn't for Letia and her company then Christian probably wouldn't even be here with us," she said.

Contact reporter Emily McPherson at em********@******om.au.

Photographs taken by a father and son in 1989 and 2020 have revealed how one of Europe's largest glacier has shrunk by 400 square kilometres due to climate change.

British scientist Kieran Baxter literally followed his father's footsteps to Vatnajökull in Iceland more than 30 years later to capture the scale of retreating ice.

At 7700 sq km, Vatnajökull is one of the biggest glaciers in Europe and spans about 8 per cent of Iceland's landmass in the country's south-east.

READ MORE: Big spike in glaciers' rate of melting

The before and after images show the dramatic effect of climate change on one of the world's most fragile environments.

In the three decades that have elapsed since 1989, Vatnajökull ice cap, has lost up to 200 sq km of ice and its area has been reduced by more than 400 sq km, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office.

In September, 1989, Scottish landscape photographer Colin Baxter visited the glacier during and took a picture of the frozen landscape.

Last August his son Kieran Baxter, a lecturer at the University of Dundee in Scotland and who was also there with his father in 1989, took a set of photographs of the glacier.

READ MORE: Colossal Thwaites Glacier is melting fast

The photographs reveal the retreat of five of Vatnajökull's outlet glaciers – Fláajökull, Heinabergsjökull, Hoffellsjokull, Hólarjökull and Skaftafellsjökull.

"I remember being in absolute awe of the stunning natural landscape and overwhelmed by the beauty of the glaciers tumbling down from the icecap up there in the distance," Kieran Baxter said.

"It is a bittersweet experience to relive those memories and witness the glacial landscapes that we visited that have now changed so radically.

"Now in 2020 it is equally overwhelming and extremely alarming, to see the disappearance of all that ice after only 30 years."

Last year Australian and New Zealand research found human-influenced climate change and greenhouse emissions are rapidly melting the world's glaciers and could lead to extreme climatic events globally.

Annual glacial melts were found to have been 10-times as likely in 2018 as a result of climate change caused by human emissions, a study conducted by Dr Lauren Vargo from Wellington's Victoria University and assisted by Monash University's Professor Andrew Mackintosh.

Scores of people in Myanmar's largest city honked car horns and banged on pots and pans on Tuesday in the first known public resistance to the coup led a day earlier by the country's military.

What was initially planned to take place for just a few minutes extended to more than a quarter-hour in several neighbourhoods of Yangon.

Shouts could be heard wishing detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi good health and calling for freedom.

READ MORE: Aung San Suu Kyi 'feeling well' after being detained by Myanmar's military in coup

"Beating a drum in Myanmar culture is like we are kicking out the devils," said one participant who declined to give his name for fear of reprisals.

Several pro-democracy groups had asked people to make noise at 8pm to show their opposition to the coup.

READ MORE: Workout video during Myanmar military coup goes viral

A senior politician and close confidante of Suu Kyi also urged citizens to defy the military through civil disobedience.

Win Htein, a leader of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, spoke on Tuesday from a small party office in the capital, Naypyitaw, not far from where hundreds of lawmakers elected in November national polls were detained when the military seized power on Monday in a lightning takeover.

"The curse of the coup is rooted in our country, and this is the reason why our country still remains poor. I feel sad and upset for our fellow citizens and for their future," the former political prisoner said.

"All the voters who gave their backing to us in the 2020 general election should follow Aung San Suu Kyi's instructions to carry out civil disobedience," he said, referring to a note posted on Monday on Facebook attributed to her.

The military began to lift restrictions on Tuesday on the hundreds of members of Parliament who had been confined at a guarded government housing complex, with the new government telling them to go back to their homes, party spokesman Kyi Toe said.

READ MORE: Why did the military stage Myanmar coup?

He said Suu Kyi was in good health at a separate location where she was being held and would stay there for the time being.

His comments couldn't immediately be confirmed.

The coup came as lawmakers gathered in the capital for the opening of a new parliamentary session.

The military said the seizure was necessary because the government had not acted on the military's unsubstantiated claims of fraud in November's election, in which Suu Kyi's party won a majority of seats.

It claimed the takeover was legal under the constitution. The move was widely condemned abroad.

The coup highlights the extent to which the generals ultimately maintained control in Myanmar, despite more than a decade of talk about democratic reforms.

Western countries had greeted the move toward democracy enthusiastically, removing sanctions they had in place for years.

It comes as Myanmar faces a growing coronavirus outbreak.

As of Tuesday, it had over 140,300 confirmed cases, including about 3,100 deaths.

The country has just received its first supply of vaccines from India.

Win Htein heavily criticised the generals for the impact he said the coup would have on efforts to protect lives.

"These people, they are super crazy to do this. They are not courageous," he said.

"The virus still remains, and the people are struggling a lot. Their only priority is power and their personal desire."

As a result, he said, "vaccines will be delayed, the economy will go down and there will be pressure from other countries."

The takeover presents a test for the international community.

US President Joe Biden called the military's actions "a direct assault on the country's transition to democracy and the rule of law" and threatened new sanctions.

The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting on Tuesday but took no action.

Suu Kyi's party released a statement on Tuesday calling for the military to honour the results of the election and release all of those detained — as have the leaders of many other countries.

"The commander in chief seizing the power of the nation is against the constitution and it also neglects the sovereign power of people," the party said.

An announcement read on military-owned Myawaddy TV on Monday said Commander in Chief Senior Gen Min Aung Hlaing would be in charge of the country for one year.

A new Cabinet composed of current and former generals and former advisers to a previous government headed by former Gen Thein Sein held its first meeting on Tuesday.

The takeover marked a shocking fall from power for Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who had lived under house arrest for years as she tried to push her country toward democracy and then became its de facto leader after her party won elections in 2015.

Suu Kyi had been a fierce critic of the army during her years in detention.

But after her shift from democracy icon to politician, she worked with the generals, who despite allowing elections maintained control of key ministries and guaranteed themselves enough seats in Parliament to have veto power over any constitutional changes.

The UN envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, urged the UN Security Council "to collectively send a clear signal in support of democracy in Myanmar."

She said the Security Council's fundamental role must be "ensuring democracy is expeditiously restored and the country does not fall back into isolation."

Diplomats said that was the key element of a draft statement for the council to release, along with a call for the immediate release of all those detained.

But the statement was not issued because it requires support from all 15 council members, and China, which has close ties to Myanmar, and Russia said they needed to send it to their capitals, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.