Australia's work place injury legislation does not protect the average worker, it is complacent and inefficient and is causing more grief to the victims and their families than the initial injury does. It is taking years for workcover to return injured workers to work and even longer if you require surgical intervention. This treatment of injured victims by workcover is not acceptable and shows that workcover is not adhering to its own legislation.
Jeff kennett completely took away our rights to sue for personal injuries that occurred at work in 1997. Mr Bracks then reinstated common law claims when he came into power but chose to only include those injured after October 20th 1999 and for those who were injured before that date you are not included. I contacted the ministers office and asked them why weren't the rest included and I was told that Mr bracks could only back date it till then as that was when he took over governing so, after doing some more research on this issue I found that this was not the case at all rather, it was because Mr bracks had promised pre-election that the workcover levy would not rise if he won therefore, when it came to deciding on how far back they would go it was decided on cost and the effect on the premiums to employers not due to the people effected by kennetts law! So to all who have been injured pre October 20th 1999, "bad luck" thanks to Mr bracks.
Another issue I have found is that, on the injury claim form there are two consents for the worker to sign. One consent allows workcover to obtain medical records/reports and the other is so workcover can provide these reports/records to anyone they feel is concerned with the claim including your boss, private investigators and even your employers lawyers!
This is a clear breach of your privacy as a victim and this has to be stopped.
This second consent gives workcover the right to hand over your complete medical files to the very people you are fighting and I for one dont believe that workcover, your employer or their insurers and anyone else workcover feels is involed has the right to your full medical records. Why arent they only requesting/providing the claimed injury records/reports, this allows workcover and your employer access to information they are not entitled to and this also allows them to form a defense against you for payments and medical services by having access to non related medical information. What if you hurt your back at work but also were suffering from a mental illness like depression and have been for years but have chosen not to tell your employer or work mates? When is the invasion of your privacy too much?
Then after all of this workcover also states that of you dont fill all of the claim form in then your claim may be rejected? So if you chose to protet your personal medical information from your emplyer then you also risk not being protected by workplace injury insurance either and the way I see this is it is just plain blackmail by workcover so where is their fair and reasonable approach to helping vitims of workplace injuries? The legislation states that all workers are entitled to workcover insurance no matter whose fault it is yet we are being told that if we dont agree to them gaining access to all files then we risk not being able to claim so which one of these explainations do we listen to? what is true and what isnt?
Dont you just laugh at their lastest run of ads on the telly?
Jeff kennett completely took away our rights to sue for personal injuries that occurred at work in 1997. Mr Bracks then reinstated common law claims when he came into power but chose to only include those injured after October 20th 1999 and for those who were injured before that date you are not included. I contacted the ministers office and asked them why weren't the rest included and I was told that Mr bracks could only back date it till then as that was when he took over governing so, after doing some more research on this issue I found that this was not the case at all rather, it was because Mr bracks had promised pre-election that the workcover levy would not rise if he won therefore, when it came to deciding on how far back they would go it was decided on cost and the effect on the premiums to employers not due to the people effected by kennetts law! So to all who have been injured pre October 20th 1999, "bad luck" thanks to Mr bracks.
Another issue I have found is that, on the injury claim form there are two consents for the worker to sign. One consent allows workcover to obtain medical records/reports and the other is so workcover can provide these reports/records to anyone they feel is concerned with the claim including your boss, private investigators and even your employers lawyers!
This is a clear breach of your privacy as a victim and this has to be stopped.
This second consent gives workcover the right to hand over your complete medical files to the very people you are fighting and I for one dont believe that workcover, your employer or their insurers and anyone else workcover feels is involed has the right to your full medical records. Why arent they only requesting/providing the claimed injury records/reports, this allows workcover and your employer access to information they are not entitled to and this also allows them to form a defense against you for payments and medical services by having access to non related medical information. What if you hurt your back at work but also were suffering from a mental illness like depression and have been for years but have chosen not to tell your employer or work mates? When is the invasion of your privacy too much?
Then after all of this workcover also states that of you dont fill all of the claim form in then your claim may be rejected? So if you chose to protet your personal medical information from your emplyer then you also risk not being protected by workplace injury insurance either and the way I see this is it is just plain blackmail by workcover so where is their fair and reasonable approach to helping vitims of workplace injuries? The legislation states that all workers are entitled to workcover insurance no matter whose fault it is yet we are being told that if we dont agree to them gaining access to all files then we risk not being able to claim so which one of these explainations do we listen to? what is true and what isnt?
Dont you just laugh at their lastest run of ads on the telly?
Day 3 the boss rings - yeah rightDay 17 the boss rings again - sure he does
Then you see the big return on light duties call. I want to work for this boss because everyone I speak to about workcover all say the same thing which is after I got injured my boss didnt want to know me and they are denying my injury not, when are you comming back to work as the ad states!!!!!! This is a load of codswobble and workcover know it.
I will be posting some legislation notes, anual reports and policy changes that have occurred and I also have more stories from other victims. If you would like your story to be posted then either email me or you can post it yourself by replying to this post and together maybe we can make them listen and get this system working the way it was designed to and not to be based on the bloody dollar like it is.
People come first and surely the government know that if we are not healthy and able to work then there is no system!
Workcover was put in place to protect the workers not to make their lives a living hell as it does we need to make the pollies sit up and pay attention to us and make the right changes to this legislation to involve all of us and to really concerntrate on us returning to the workforce and not becomming another statistic of these incompetent government departments.
No comments:
Post a Comment