I'd like to think that the Church had a limited life expectancy, instead.

Now, this makes me really angry.

Church contests age expectancy of brain injured Myles Hill (Courier Mail)

That's not a very helpful headline, so let me give you the synopsis:

Myles Hill, now 17, suffered a serious brain injury while boogie-boarding at the Southport School in 2003. The Anglican Church, who I can only assume are responsible for the school, are denying culpability, pointing the finger of blame at so many other parties that one wonders if they're trying to snowball the court into submission.

I mean it, it really is ridiculous.

But, and here is the point that makes me see red, they are trying to limit the amount of damages claims by claiming that he won't live for very much longer.

To remind you: I have worked with brain injury. I dealt, day in and day out, with families who are facing inadequate care because they can't afford it, because the compensation funds ran out early. I have been at large meetings where services from different branches of public and private, health and disability and law and insurance, all agreed that a major problem with compensation payouts is that people with brain injury live longer than courts expect.

In fact, Disability Services Queensland have identified this issue, and the resultant need for publicly funded services, as a crucial one that needs to be addressed. Papers discussing PhD research on this issue are available from the Articles section of Gitana Consulting's website.

So, the fact that a Church, a pack of hypocritical bastards who have the gall to go on records as saying:

""While we respect the legal mechanism and the process, the church's focus is one of compassion and pastoral care," he said. "Our prayers and thoughts remain with Myles and his family.""

The fact that this church is pointing the finger of blame at everyone else and accusing the family of not being able to care for Myles, is saying "Oh, he's not going to live for very long, so the enormous emotional trauma you've already suffered and the added trauma of us telling you this is irrelevant, really, because someone with really high medical care needs isn't going to live long enough to need help", that is a candidate for a Scumbag Of The Year award.

It must be so easy to be religious, and claim that merely thinking happy thoughts instead of actually doing anything discharges all responsibilities, duties of care, and expectations of compassion. Useless pricks, the lot of them, living like a bloated appendix on the rest of society.