WHICH Commonwealth employer has the most equitable and safe work practices? Many would nominate Comcare, the authority mandated to work ''in partnership with employees and employers to reduce the human and financial costs of workplace injuries and disease in the Commonwealth jurisdiction''.
Which is why I am appalled at the treatment shown by Comcare towards a talented young lawyer, Sara Ryan, who once briefly worked there. Comcare purports to be a model litigant. But it is hard to see how this is so in Ryan's case. I hope her case is an aberration. But if Comcare treats one of its own like this, I have to wonder.
''In my opinion my patient Sara Ryan has been treated very poorly and with a complete disregard for her as both an employee and a person by Comcare, an organisation that purports to value staff, safety and prevent illness and injury relating to Commonwealth public service employees,'' Ryan's doctor wrote to then deputy prime minister and industrial relations minister Julia Gillard, asking her to intervene, in 2010.
Since Comcare sacked her in 2008, Ryan's emotional state has steadily declined. She is in dire financial difficulty and, due to an apparent lapse of Comcare's own protocols, her name as a lawyer has been blackened in the Canberra legal establishment.
Besides ending the career of a gifted international lawyer (a rare Commonwealth commodity) the Ryan case represents a miscarriage of process, a waste of public resources and a double standard by an organisation for which workers' welfare is supposedly paramount.
She, or those who act on her behalf, have appealed to no avail for intervention from a range of federal ministers, including Gillard.
Comcare went to considerable effort and expense to poach Ryan from the AFP in 2008, to head a claims unit. She had previously worked with the AFP in its international law division. She had also worked for the Commonwealth Attorney-General and in the Department of Foreign Affairs, both of which had given her excellent references and performance appraisals. After six weeks of sick leave from the AFP for a serious virus that was compounded by workplace-related stress, she accepted the job with Comcare.
''Sara demonstrated a supportive, approachable, thorough management style and was very fast on the uptake,'' one of her experienced staff at Comcare later wrote.
Three weeks later her supervisor gave her a ''show cause'' letter demanding to know why she had not declared that she was ''medically unfit'' when she began at Comcare. Ryan had demonstrably been declared fit to begin work for Comcare. Comcare also claimed Ryan had for three days still been employed by the AFP when she started. Ryan agrees this was technically the case, but says it was due to an administrative oversight beyond her control.
She was evicted from the building and sacked nine days later, placing in question the integrity of the show-cause process.
Ryan began legal proceedings for breach of contract and personal injury. Comcare settled the breach of contract - on condition she make a Comcare claim for the personal injury. The claim was then assessed by those she had once worked close to.
Comcare has publicly conceded that while those in its Canberra office who processed Ryan's claim may not have known her, they might have potentially worked in the same office with those, including supervisors, who were involved with the cause of her claim.
Last year when the claims officer told Ryan her claim had been rejected, Ryan expressed frustration that she was part of the same community as those determining her claim. Comcare threatened her with a restraining order. She says her subsequent complaint to the Office of Legal Services Co-ordination went unanswered. The case is listed before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
It appears the officer who had until recently been issuing legal instructions for Comcare had also overseen her sacking.
A psychiatrist consulted by Comcare said: ''Her [Ryan's] self-esteem was thoroughly destroyed … the causative factors relate directly to … the circumstances of her unjust termination.'' So much for yet another department supposedly being a model litigant.
Written By : Paul Daley
National Times
17 April 2011
1 comment:
Comcare are farming out there law suits to private firms who have a long list of Physicians who will support their agendas, ie to fabricate a medical spin that condemns the applicant.
If there is a political stink about the case the physician will usually tell the truth to be struck off Comcare and their law firms roll of honour.
This industry is full of rules and regulations but wheres the Insurer Physician watchdog? There is none. Its a dirty racket!
Post a Comment