My compensation claim has dragged on for years without a satisfactory completion owing to incompetence, lack of response to correspondence, several case managers assigned to my case and then moved on before they even got to grips with it.
The first delay was when Fairwork Australia told me the wrong insurance co. of my former employer and I dealt with that firm for over six months before they realized they weren’t in fact the insurers and hadn’t been for some months. How incompetent is that? Hence I had to start from the beginning with a new company.
I am a qualified social worker (plus other tertiary qualifications) and had worked for a welfare organization, Australian Birthright Movement as the coordinator/counsellor of the Northern Beaches Lone Parents branch in Sydney for 12 years. We had three staff, several volunteers and 65 families (with various levels of need) on our books.
In March 2012 I had a visit from my employer, at one hour’s notice, despite my telling him I had a fully booked day. To my shock, without any previous discussion or consultation with myself or other branches my employer had decided to close all branches and had in fact already contacted FACs and FAHCSIA to cancel all funding. (This I found out later). This was gross negligence and lack of duty of care to all concerned – staff, volunteers, our board members and of course our 65 families. Our FACS worker never even came to see me to offer assistance with our continuance even when she knew in advance about the closure and cessation of funding. To try and prevent the closure of our service, I have sent several emails to my employer and FACS, Ministers Upton and Goward but with no response.
Since our branch was the largest and most successful with great community support from service clubs, Rotary, local MPs and other welfare agencies, I suggested we become a standalone agency. The chair of Birthright agreed we could pursue this path if we wished. Of course this was all a shock to our staff, board members and Rotary – and a social work student I was about to start supervising on placement. At this stage we did not inform clients and pressed on getting support letters from all and sundry. My employer informed me he would provide another worker to assist us with this changeover.
On 7th June 2012 my employer arrived once again at short notice even though I begged him not to come as it was our group day when many parents and children came to collect OZHarvest food, have cooking lessons and a general get-together. We had a paid child-care worker and a couple of volunteers and it was our busiest day. He came anyway accompanied by a consultant, whom it turned out was to help us “close down” not carry on. It was a frightful day as clients realized what was happening when their group room was taken over, people were crying, women begging to speak to my employer, some wanting to egg his car. Clients had to use a narrow side hall to access their food parcels, were coming in passing me notes about what was going on, cooking class was cancelled. Our employer was totally unaware and unsympathetic to anyone’s feelings, including our Rotary board member whom I had invited at the last minute for support. I couldn’t stop shaking and had difficulty standing up after my employer and the consultant left but made it through the afternoon and eventually was able to drive home. Previously I was not a sickly person and in fact was owed 7 weeks sick leave when Lone Parents was closed down.
Sometime during the night of 7th June/early hours of 8th June I suffered a mini-stroke – a TIA. I woke and immediately fell over when I tried to stand up. I crawled to the bathroom and then the sitting room – I realized something was wrong when I couldn’t hold a pen and write. Obviously I had two weeks off work while I struggled with medical and agency issues but it was not until Feb. 2013 that the insurance Co., Gallagher Basset sent me to see a neurologist. At this stage I was still walking with a limp, was re-learning to write with the aid of a children’s writing book and had had three more falls, fortunately only one of them in the street.
The neurologist’s report accepted the fact that I had had a stroke, on-going weakness in my right side including eyes (stronger glasses), the need for hearing aids and limited strength in my right arm. At this time I was attending the stroke unit at my local hospital on a weekly basis plus exercising at home. I was receiving the aged pension- I know other staff who lost their jobs with me are still battling with Centrelink regarding the disability pension.
The Neurologist’s report concluded that I had had a “left hemisphere stroke” and in his opinion “she will never be able to enter the workforce again”. BUT he refused to link the two – my stroke on 7th June related to the incidents that day at my work place. I was advised to see another neurologist for a second opinion, at my own expense! I saw another dr. twice and his opinion was the same but when I submitted his report I was informed that it had already been decided that they would accept the Fairwork’s neurologist’s report. A waste of my money.
I did receive about $30,000 redundancy from Birthright but that included 10 years long service leave and sick leave. This went pretty quickly with mounting medical bills, having to move to somewhere with less stairs and considering this was previously my annual salary. My health has deteriorated and I have to have Homecare (half of which I pay for), can’t cut my toenails or blow dry my hair because I never regained full use of my right arm and hand, only drive short distances and can’t use public transport because of my unsteady gait and needing to hang on to something.
This whole saga has completely ruined my life, my confidence and self-esteem. I had built our agency up from nothing over the years, received many community awards plus the Paul Harris Fellowship which is the top International Rotary Award. I was also chairperson of the Northern Beaches Interagency for 3 years – an organization of about 30 NGO’s in the area.
I ran a successful agency, brought up a son on my own, did a second degree without HECs, played tennis, walked, went to the gym, was very involved in community work – just had not planned for my life to end at 65 – thought I’d work on at Birthright until I was at least 70 with a salary and super.
Where to go from here I don’t know – my medical and pharmaceutical bills are huge and I receive food from a local church and EAPA vouchers from Vinnies. My family are all in the UK and my partner died some years ago.
I am just one person I know but I also know I am not alone in this experience. A compensation system should be there to protect workers injured by their workplace, not force them to collect food from their local church and beg Vinnies for EAPA vouchers for energy bills.