It may (or may not) come as a surprise to anyone reading our website that we occasionally get some negative feedback from people, either through email, vocally or through comments on our website.
It’s easy for me to deal with them; I’ve had 25 years in the welfare business. I can spot them a mile away and avoid or encounter as I choose, with skill and a firm feeling of the ridiculousness these people engender in me. It’s called “professional resilience” (just don’t talk to me about the Parramatta Eels).
I am not that special I know, just in this area I can stand tall because I know the values we as an organisation share. Not everyone does. It might be for political reasons or personal reasons but others seem to have a wire loose in their amygdala* somewhere that prevents them from acknowledging some of those values – and for some unknown reason- they want to share their skewed logic with me – or us if it’s a comment to the website.
These are four of those wonky thoughts I have come across recently:
Workers compensation should be there for only the truly injured.
What they really mean is that Workers Comp is a rort and everyone should be kicked off because they themselves haven’t been able to judge who is “deserving” or not.
I don’t particularly know how they believe they possess such God like qualities to judge the level of harm and pain over 50,000 NSW workers experience every year or even how their particular education could outweigh the professional judgement of the 2,500 general practitioners in NSW who assess injured workers on a daily basis but I think the fact that they can believe such skewed logic disqualifies them from any role in the process.
The fact of the matter is only 0.02% of all worker claims are found to be fraudulent (WorkCover stats 11/12 –only ones published). Even insurers believe that the level of “over claiming” is less than 2.5% of all claims and that figure is significantly made up of accepted claimants (legitimately injured workers) claiming for items that they are ignorant about not being able to claim for- not trying to goad the system.
That injured workers should never comment on anything because if they do it shows they aren’t injured.
Seriously? Someone types on a keyboard and therefore they aren’t injured? Or they get up (or sits) and speak so they can’t be injured? Today’s technology is good enough that my 4 year old mobile phone can record what I say and type it up for me! Technology allows people with disabilities to do more than some people seem able to comprehend. But that proof is too obvious isn’t it.
People who are injured have their good days and their bad days. They can also do things at a pace where they aren’t suffering. They can also be so motivated that, for a short time, they work through their pain to make their voices heard. They should be applauded for this not derided by some fool with a microsecond thought process.
That because it’s their opinion it outweighs fact.
Let’s get one thing straight. When people leave comments on the Injured Workers Support Network about member’s experiences they are just that, the individual experiences of those members, that doesn’t constitute fact in and of itself. When the Injured Workers Support Network compiles those comments (over 4,000 comments, emails Facebook posts so far and counting) and they say similar things (such as insurers preventing timely treatments) then those experiences take on a systemic feel (meaning it’s an institutionalised practice)- this still isn’t fact though (20,000 divided by 4,000). When parliamentary inquiries, doctors, academics, insurers, and we are saying exactly the same thing… that is fact – it’s not an opinion. Still not enough!! You can have an opinion, the flat earth society is still taking membership, but what happens inside your brain doesn’t make that opinion solid gold truth.
That we should be grateful for what we’ve got.
The truth is that we are grateful for what we’ve got. But people who say this aren’t talking about the thanks we give to medical staff or case managers or even WorkCover staff. What they are saying is that injured worker and the Injured Workers Support Network should just shut the hell up and suffer in silence or to put it more gently – they don’t give a dam about what someone else is going through.
The fact (real and verified by researchers) is someone who has put in a workers comp claim in NSW is likely to take 50% more time to recover from an injury than someone with the same injury but who hasn’t put in a workers comp claim but has claimed on private insurance. Does this mean workers comp should be scrapped? No, it means there is something wrong with the system. It is also true that someone who has been injured at work is more likely to be fired than someone who hasn’t had an injury at work –again it’s a system failure (and disability discrimination). If you are injured by a failing of a work process, by an accident at work or by the behaviour of someone at work you shouldn’t be liable for the costs of your recovery. We have had that recognition at law since the middle ages. Why should someone be silent if a government or an insurer is making it harder to recover from an accident? Who in their right mind would expect anyone to just sit back and take it as they see their family suffer because of someone else’s fault?
-No, we won’t be silent and we don’t expect you to be silent if your harmed by someone else either.
That the Injured Workers Support Network isn’t doing enough.
Well… Ok, but I need to sleep sometime don’t I?
(*The amygdala (Latin, corpus amygdaloideum) is an almond-shape set of neurons located deep in the brain’s medial temporal lobe near the spine. Shown to play a key role in the processsing of emotions, the amygdala forms part of the limbic system. Its part of our monkey brain)- thanks Pete.