ACC doctor threatens to sue over website

An article from the Whakatane Beacon by Samantha Motion

An ACC doctor threatened legal action against an Eastern Bay woman after correspondence between the two appeared on a website.
Last week it emerged that another senior ACC doctor had sued a Sensitive Claims Unit client for $250,000 over a satirical blog post she wrote about him in November last year.
The legal action was highlighted by Labour MP and victims’ rights spokeswoman Carmel Sepuloni in Parliament last week.
The doctor issued a statement saying it was not about money, but about his professional reputation and he would cease proceedings if the offending material was taken down and the blogger made a public apology, neither of which has reportedly occurred.
It was not the first time an ACC employee had threatened legal action against a victim of sexual abuse.
An Eastern Bay woman received a letter in July last year from a law firm representing a “third party assessor” doctor who had handled her case on behalf of ACC.
The lawyer alleged a letter, which the Sensitive Claims Unit client had written to the doctor, was derogatory and defamatory. The lawyer said it appeared the woman had published the letter on an internet ACC forum, but the woman denied she had.
In response to a demand the letter be removed from the internet within 12 hours the woman sent a message offline to the person who posted it asking them to remove it.
The letter said the woman should “not make any further attempt to publish your derogatory and defamatory comments” regarding the doctor.
It said the doctor “reserves her right of legal action, including seeking damages from you”.
No further action has been taken.

© 2011 Whakatane Beacon

http://www.whakatanebeacon.co.nz/cms/news/2011/04/art10009142.php

Victim pursues ACC privacy file complaint

An article from the Whakatane Beacon by Samantha Motion

A sexual abuse victim says there is evidence her confidential file was opened and read when it was sent to a Matata dairy by ACC without her name on it last year.
ACC has accepted the package was incorrectly addressed to the Matata Superstore and has apologised for breaching the woman’s privacy, saying it was the result of human error in its mailroom.
The woman said as a result of the breach, her home was vandalised, she received phone calls, emails and visits from strangers and became afraid to leave her house.
She and her husband suffered irreparable damage and believed they could no longer live in Matata.
In a letter to the woman’s lawyer, ACC privacy officer Miriama Henderson acknowledged the woman and her husband experienced a “stressful time”.
After originally offering a $10,000 settlement, however, the corporation reneged.
Ms Henderson said it did not believe a financial settlement was “appropriate” on the basis that the harm caused to the woman had resulted from media reports about the incident and the woman’s “belief” that shop workers had read and disclosed information about her.
“ACC did not approach the media about [the woman’s] case and the evidence obtained in the investigation indicates that people working at the store did not disclose information.”
The woman was angry after initially learning of the privacy breach and contacted some national media organisations. The incident also featured in the Beacon.
Ms Henderson said the store owner had been spoken to during ACC’s investigation of the incident.
He admitted opening the package to find out who it was for, but was adamant no-one had read the contents or discussed it with members of the public.
Yesterday the woman said her lawyer had obtained letters from people who had been given details from the file, and excerpts from internet message boards where posters referred to the incident and the woman’s personal information.
She said one of the posts alleged the dairy owner talked to the poster’s mother about the contents of the file.
The woman is pursuing her complaint with the Privacy Commission.
Recently ACC’s Office of the Complaints Investigator found the corporation’s Sensitive Claims Unit had breached the woman’s rights 40 times.
They included unreasonable delays in processing and assessing her claims and failure observe her rights in line with the code of claimant’s rights.

© 2010 Whakatane Beacon
http://www.whakatanebeacon.co.nz/cms/news/2011/02/art10008769.php

Abuse victim "vindicated" by win over ACC

An article from the Whakatane Beacon

An Eastern Bay sexual abuse victim says she feels vindicated after an independent review found ACC “unreasonably delayed” processing her claim for weekly compensation for 10 months.
The decision ruled ACC must accept the victim’s claim and give her 10 months backdated weekly compensation costs.
The woman, who has asked to be referred to as “Rachel” in the Beacon, was also awarded costs of $1985 to cover case preparation, travel costs and a psychiatric assessment.
Her claim related to mental injuries caused by childhood and adult sexual abuse, conditions that relapsed last year as a result of personal circumstances, culminating in her resignation from her place of work.
Over the next 10 months Rachel and her husband exhausted their savings, defaulted on their rent many times, became indebted to utility providers and sold furniture to pay their bills while fighting for weekly compensation.
Rachel told the Beacon she felt a “righteous and justifiable” indignation about what had occurred with her claim. “Horrific, boy, that’s an understatement of what I truly feel about ACC and what they have put me through.”
She acknowledged some of her own communications with ACC in the past had not been great, but said she felt provoked into “reacting rather than responding” by the corporation’s unreasonable actions.
Over the 10 months ACC rejected one claim for compensation, then accepted a second only to rescind that decision a month later according to a copy of the reviewer’s decision obtained by the Beacon.
ACC experts decided Rachel needed to undergo further medical assessments to determine her claim, but failed to make appointments with the relevant professionals.
Rachel and her advocate David Wadsworth maintained throughout that there was enough information on file to make a decision, but she would willingly under go further examination to progress things.
She arranged two assessments with her GP and counsellor during the course of the year and provided them to ACC.
In August, in an effort to expedite matters, Rachel arranged her own psychiatric consultation and assessment.
Upon receiving that report, ACC maintained further assessment before “a panel of relevant health professionals” was still required before Rachel’s claim could be settled. Those assessments had still yet to be booked at the time of review on September 8.
ACC blamed the delays on Rachel and “the evolution of the claim”. They also argued that all events after the lodgement of the review hearing on May 1 were outside the reviewer’s jurisdiction, which the reviewer disagreed with.
The reviewer ruled there was sufficient medical evidence in reports for ACC to have made a decision on the claim in May.

http://www.whakatanebeacon.co.nz/cms/news/2010/10/art10008024.php

Counselling is back on cards for sex abuse victims

An article from the Whakatane Beacon

A Whakatane counsellor says changes to ACC that allow 16 hours of counselling for sexual abuse victims is a desperately-needed improvement – but there is much more to be done.
From Monday this week, people with a new ACC sensitive claim, or with a new claim already in the system awaiting a decision, will be able to access up to 16 hours of counselling to ensure their safety and wellbeing.
Debbie Magee from Insight Counselling Services in Whakatane said there was still some details that needed to be finalised, such as what would happen to people who had been declined for assistance or who had relapsed since leaving counselling. “It’s a lot better than it was but it still needs to go further,” she said. “At least it gives survivors something in the meantime.”
The Government introduced a new sensitive claims “pathway” in October last year, which required people to be diagnosed with a mental illness as a result of sexual abuse in order to receive funding for counselling. The pathway required a doctor’s opinion and assessments from a psychologist or psychiatrist to determine whether a person has suffered a mental injury.
A group of Whakatane counsellors expressed their concerns to Labour MPs in March this year that the new legislation would result in at-risk patients not receiving the help they needed. They were also concerned they would end up providing their services for free, because they couldn’t refuse to help people in need.
The 16 hours of counselling is intended to provide support to survivors of sexual abuse and information gained by counsellors during these sessions would be used within the assessment process.
ACC general manager claims manager Denise Cosgrove said ACC had listened to concerns expressed by several groups that more support was needed but they would still be continuing to develop the sensitive claims process. “We still believe these are reasonable goals but acknowledge that the introduction of the pathway exposed gaps in the services available to people who have suffered sexual abuse,” she said.
Mrs Magee said ultimately she would like to see these people get a minimum 30 hours of counselling sessions, but 16 hours was better than nothing. “It gives us time to work with the person to help them cope better,” she said. “Hopefully it will give some survivors more confidence in coming forward again.” At the very least, it would likely include counsellors in the assessment process again, which was heartening, she said.
Victims rights spokesperson for the Labour party, Lynne Pillay, said this action did not go far enough and the cost cutting exercise should be stopped immediately. “Since National introduced this scheme thousands of sexual abuse survivors have been denied counselling,” Ms Pillay said. “Up to 90 per cent of claims for sexual abuse counselling has either been declined or put into a holding pattern since October last year.”
A Whakatane woman known as Rachel, who has been fighting ACC for compensation and funding for counselling for sexual abuse and whose case is being followed by the Beacon, will be entitled to receive counselling sessions under these changes. However, she said the process was still lengthy and, because ACC would likely be inundated with new claims, the system would be further bogged down.
Her advocate David Wadsworth said providing the preliminary counselling sessions was really just putting a band-aid on a more serious problem, which was ACC processes and the lengthy wait that claimants constantly endured. He said it was taking ACC an extraordinary amount of time to process claims and make decisions on whether or not they would be accepted since this new sensitive pathways legislation was imposed. Rachel, for example, had been in the system for nine months so far, awaiting a decision on her claim, despite her GP recommending she receive prompt and brief intervention to enable her return to work.

© 2010 Whakatane Beacon
http://www.whakatanebeacon.co.nz/cms/news/2010/08/art10007697.php

Victim's file sent to store owner

An article from the Whakatane Beacon

An Eastern Bay sexual abuse victim is hiding in her home after ACC sent her patient file to a Matata dairy owner.
The woman, known as “Rachel”, said since the incident her home had been graffiti-ed, a job interview had been cancelled and she had been told she was the subject of rumours in the community.
The Privacy Commissioner’s office is investigating how ACC came to incorrectly address the package, resulting in the blunder.
Rachel’s advocate David Wadsworth said a confidential compensation settlement from ACC for the privacy breach was in the works. Both he and Rachel declined to comment further on the settlement.
ACC minister Nick Smith told Sunday Star-Times he was not aware of the case until Saturday, but any breach of ACC’s confidentiality requirements was unacceptable.
Rachel has been battling with ACC since January for compensation for a mental injury caused by sexual abuse she suffered as a child and again as an adult.
She applied to ACC’s sensitive claims unit to receive a copy of her file last month, and was asked to provide an address earlier this month.
She emailed back with clear instructions that the courier package was to be labelled with her name and address and sent via the Matata Superfoods dairy.
Rachel said she and other rural residents not registered with rural mail had been receiving their post in this manner for years without any adverse events.
However, a blunder at ACC’s mailing centre meant Rachel’s name was left off and the package was addressed only to the store.
The file contained hundreds of pages of case notes and confidential medical and health information.
Store owner Supinder Mann said he opened the package because it was addressed to his business, but did not read it or show it to anyone before giving it to the woman’s husband when he worked out the intended recipient.
Rachel said she did not blame Mr Mann for opening the package.
She said she had asked ACC to notify her when the package was sent and provide her with a tracking number, but had received no reply.
The first she knew of its arrival was when a stranger arrived at her home and told her that intimate details of her troubled past and her family were the “talk of the town”.
Since then it had been like being caught in a game of Chinese whispers, she said, with her story becoming more and more fabricated as it was passed from person to person.
She and her husband had arrived home one evening last week to find words including “rapist” and “freak” graffiti-ed on their home.
Many other people, however, had contacted her with messages of sympathy and support, she said.
Rachel said the incident was just another in a string of ACC delays and mistakes that were making her life “hell”.
In January, the Beacon reported leaked internal ACC emails showing Rachel might be refused funding because her mental injury pre-dated the introduction of ACC.
Six months on, Mr Wadsworth said ACC had accepted Rachel’s compensation claim, but continued delays meant she would likely not be assessed for whatever entitlement she qualified for until August – at the earliest.
This was because one of the two psychiatrists who would review her file was on holiday until August, and the other was unwilling to assess it alone.

© 2010 Whakatane Beacon
http://www.whakatanebeacon.co.nz/cms/news/2010/07/art10007560.php

Goff adds voice against ACC cuts

An article from the Whakatane Beacon

An Eastern Bay woman who wrote a plea for help to opposition leader Phil Goff described how her despair and worry over the Government’s decision to change the guidelines on supporting victims of sexual abuse had contributed to her suicidal feelings.
The letter in part prompted Mr Goff’s third visit to Whakatane this year, where he met with the woman and her counsellor to gain a greater understanding of how she was being affected by the rule changes.
Those changes, introduced as part of the Government’s new sensitive claims unit in October last year, mean abuse victims must be diagnosed with a mental illness as a result of the abuse in order to receive ACC compensation. And under the new legislation the number of people eligible people who were approved for funding for such therapy had dropped from 312 in October 2008 to just 12 in February this year.
“I was lucky enough to have a stable and loving upbringing, so it is hard for me to come to terms with something like this,” Mr Goff said. “But there is no denying people like this have been through an absolutely traumatic experience. It is something that will blight their entire life unless the get help to move on.
“For a person who has been through that experience, but then gets the right help, they are able to turn their lives around and move on. We used to cover that under ACC, but they have changed the guidelines on who qualifies.
“Those figures are ACC Minister Nick Smith’s own figures, produced as an answer to a written question in Parliament. The initial figure they had was six, but the minister argued ‘No, it’s more than double that’. There’s still a drop of 300 people who are not getting the attention they need and Nick Smith being picky like that makes a farce of the entire situation.”
While in Whakatane Mr Goff also addressed a Grey Power rally attended by about 90 people, where he spoke of his concerns over the ACC changes as well as the effects of the Government’s predicted hike in gst to 15 per cent – tipped to be a staple of next week’s Budget.

© 2010 Whakatane Beacon
http://www.whakatanebeacon.co.nz/cms/news/2010/05/art10007146.php

Help us stop ACC cuts

An article from the Whakatane Beacon

Increasing fears among counsellors in the Eastern Bay that their at-risk patients may go without help under new ACC legislation may prompt them to provide their services for free.
The Government introduced a new Sensitive Claims Unit in October last year, which requires clients to be diagnosed with a mental illness as a result of sexual abuse in order to receive ACC compensation. Under these new rules, sexual abuse victims must first visit a doctor, clinical psychologist or psychiatrist who would determine whether the client has a mental injury arising from a criminal event. If the person qualifies they can then make a claim to ACC.
However a group of five counsellors from Opotiki and Whakatane say they already knew of several cases where this new process had been followed - but the claims had still been turned down. The five counsellors and Whakatane Women’s Refuge manager Wini Te Are recently met with Labour MPs Ruth Dyson and Moana Mackey in Whakatane to air their concerns and ask for answers. At that meeting Anne Doree, Caren Mandemaker, Debbie Magee, Marion van Delden, Tracy Hillier and Ms Te Are expressed their concern about the long-term social cost of denying people counselling and the effect on their clients, who were upset that nobody had asked them.
Opotiki counsellor Debbie Magee said the new legislation had created a big hurdle for those seeking assistance to get ongoing support. Quick intervention was crucial at that early stage. Since it had been introduced there had been a huge decline in people coming forward - but that didn’t reflect a reduction in need, which was how supporters of the change would likely interpret such statistics. “They are just too frightened,” she said. “The process is already frightening and this has made it worse. I’m really angry.”
Anne Doree, a counsellor for the Chrysalis Group in Whakatane, said they were likely to end up treating clients voluntarily if they did not qualify for ACC funding. “We can’t not help these women”. Providing their services for free would seriously undermine their years of experience, she said.
Private practice counsellor Marion van Deldon said many of her clients, particularly the men, wanted her to tell the MPs that they would be “out there killing people” if it wasn’t for counselling they received. Ms van Deldon said making counselling services less accessible to those in need would inevitably result in escalating crime and substance abuse and, ultimately, an over-burdened prison system.
Ms Te Are said she was worried the already-pressured refuge would have to cover services that were no longer available in the Eastern Bay and they would bear the brunt of the social impact of these changes. “We are really worried about the direction the Government is taking,” she said. “We are struggling to provide a service in the Eastern Bay and we are well over our voluntary level already. We can’t sustain all the work in the community.”
Rape Crisis was no longer available in the district and this was one of the extra services now being covered by refuge volunteers.
Former ACC minister Ruth Dyson said she and her colleagues were battling the changes in Parliament. “I have heard some heartbreaking cases and it is terrible that these people are the first ones to be victimised,” she said. Ms Dyson said it was clearly the Government’s agenda to eventually privatise ACC but if this happened, Labour would renationalise if they were victorious in the 2011 election.
Ms Mackey, Labour’s East Coast-based list MP, said the issue was too important to let go and they would keep questioning the minister Nick Smith about it. “It isn’t an issue we are going to drop,” she said. “The system was working before so we just need to keep the pressure on. This is a government that, when it’s put under pressure, it backs down.”

© 2010 Whakatane Beacon
http://www.whakatanebeacon.co.nz/cms/news/2010/03/art10006821.php