Written by Josephine Lin, Melange Magazine, May 12, 2025
Monday 12 May
In short:
An 11-year-old boy in a wheelchair missed his medical appointment in Adelaide because no access taxi was available.
His mother stopped a truck driver, who took the pair to the hospital.
What’s next?
Transport Minister Tom Koutsantonis has labelled the incident “outrageous”.
A mother and her son with a disability waited two hours for an access taxi before a Good Samaritan drove them to an Adelaide hospital.
Eleven-year-old Oliver, who uses a mobility aid, travelled from Toowoomba to attend a medical appointment at Adelaide Memorial Hospital to wean him off a feeding drip.
His mother Jodie Sandy booked a disability cab from an Adelaide CBD hotel they were staying at, but on Monday morning the ride never arrived.
Ms Sandy said she made desperate calls to three taxi services but received text messages that no access cab driver was available.
As the appointment time came and went, Ms Sandy rang ABC Radio Adelaide after waiting two hours for a ride.
“I’m the most casual, relaxed person you’d ever ever meet but this morning has been one horrendous episode,” she said.
“In my little fit of hot mess, I was called rude, I was called every name under the sun and I said [to the taxi company], ‘this service is appalling’.”
The interview was interrupted when Ms Sandy stopped for a truck driver outside the hotel.
“Can you get me to the hospital? With all our gear in the back? You’re on radio,” Jodie was heard speaking to the driver.
“Pull on in, I’ll give you $100.
“I did it, I jumped out and he stopped for me,” she told radio presenters Sonya, Jules and Rory.
The mother said Oliver, who has cerebral palsy and has been unwell since birth, needed to be in Adelaide for an intensive tube wean, which could take one to two weeks.
“This is the best in Australia for a tube wean,” she said.
“We starved Oliver, in most layman’s terms, to help him to orally feed so his brain switches in and goes, ‘My tummy is hungry, I’m going to put something in my mouth try and chew and swallow safely so I don’t have to be fed by the peg.’
“This will be our fourth go with Oliver, every time we have done it previously because of his medical condition he becomes very unwell, so this was my last crack.”
She estimated she had spent $25,000 to $30,000 for the medical procedures.
Oliver still managed to see a doctor on Monday despite the transport issues, Ms Sandy said.
Driver Dee Chhoy said he was on his normal route through the city when he noticed Ms Sandy and her son on the street.
“She looked real stressed,” Mr Chhoy said.
“She was on the phone talking to someone, she was crying.”
Mr Chhoy said he looped back around to ask the woman if everything was alright.
“It was sad seeing her like that and when I saw the little one too that’s what made me ask the question,”
he said.
Asked how the pair reacted when he asked them to hop aboard, Mr Chhoy said: “She was just grateful.”
“She was shocked herself that I stopped but I’m sure there’s a lot of other people that would have stopped if they saw it,” he said.
Asked how his passengers enjoyed the ride, Mr Chhoy said with a smile: “The young fella loved it, kept playing with the steering wheel while I was driving, but I managed.”
Access cabs reforms to fix ‘broken’ system
Transport Minister Tom Koutsantonis said Ms Sandy’s experience was “outrageous” and “completely unacceptable”.
“Every South Australian has every right to be very angry this morning,”
he said.
“There’s an entire fleet of access cab drivers who keep on telling me over and over again that there’s not enough work for them to survive, that they’re not getting enough revenue, yet people are somehow waiting up to two hours for an access cab.”
Mr Koutsantonis says despite more than 100 access cab plates being available in Adelaide, the current model is “broken”.
“Given the subsidies that are in place, some drivers are doing exceptionally well working eight to nine hour shifts, others are finding it hard to get work at all,” he said.
“What you’re finding is there’s a two-tier system here where some drivers are doing the right thing, other drivers have bilateral arrangements with their own customers and get preferential.
“Through the preferencing system that we’ve got in our access cab system which means that you can preference a driver, which means that driver can be off for large parts of a day working on one customer because they have these subsidies.”
Over the years, the SA government has extended a $25 lifting fee for access cab drivers to help passengers with mobility needs.
Earlier this year, legislation passed to allow the government to buy back access cab plates.
“I want to see a model where the incentive by owner-operators is removed and it’s a service delivery model rather than a for-profit model by individuals who own a van,” he said.
Access cab operator Hugo Siu said situations like Oliver’s occurred as a “consequence of policy changes” which came into place in July last year, along with “a lack of clear public information”.
He said the system now prioritises SA Transport Subsidy Scheme cardholders over those from interstate which left visitors like Oliver at a “significant disadvantage”.
“Many Access Cab drivers are deeply frustrated by this outcome,” Mr Siu said.
“They take pride in serving people with disabilities and mobility needs, and many feel disheartened by the limitations placed on their ability to assist those without SATSS cards.”
He said access cab drivers would be would be “very keen to engage in constructive dialogue with the government to help design a new Access Cab model — one that is fair, sustainable, and ultimately benefits all users and drivers alike”.
Taxi company apologises
A spokesperson for 13cabs told the ABC the company had been in contact with Ms Sandy.
“We are contacting the passenger to work through what occurred, offer our sincere apologies and ensure that we can help her in the future,” the spokesperson said.
“The incident highlights a broader issue with accessible transport in Adelaide. We remain committed to working with the South Australian Government as part of its plan to overhaul this sector and ensure events like this no longer occur.
“We hope that any future plan ensures commercial viability while making sure that those who agree to supply these services do so in a way that provides some of our most vulnerable citizens with reliable transport services.”
Suburban Taxis has also been contacted for comment.