ACC claimant: ‘I was talking to nobody’
Rai Valley man Peter Firmin is one of at least 212 ACC claimants assigned a case manager with a bogus name.
The ex-soldier was badly injured during a military training exercise in a Malaysian jungle in 1986 at the age of 23.
A delay in hospital treatment resulted in permanent damage to his spine.
He started receiving ACC compensation payments in 1988 but maintained the amount was incorrect for 15 years before a judge found in his favour in 2014.
The failed bid to have his case heard took its toll and in 1997 Firmin ’’snapped’’.
Using explosives and firearms, he took an air force staff member hostage for five hours at the Woodbourne base.
He was imprisoned for fourand-a-half years.
He now believes his drastic action was the result of stress caused by ‘‘inhumane, bully-boy’’ treatment by ACC and the New Zealand Defence Force.
Following his release in 2002, Firmin was assigned a case man- ager in Nelson but was transferred to ACC’s remote claims unit (RCU) eight months later.
Claimants in the RCU are not told their case manager uses a pseudonym and communication with them is restricted to letters and an 0800 phone message service.
An ACC spokesman said the unit was set up ’’to ensure the safety of our staff when dealing with more challenging clients’’.
Critics say it is being used to silence and punish claimants who question their entitlements and take up too much time.
Firmin had started taping the meetings with his case manager as evidence for his entitlement appeal and believed that was behind his transfer to the RCU.
He continued with his appeal but said it was much more difficult.
‘‘They just stone-walled me. It’s much less easy to stonewall someone face to face.’’
In 2014, the Court of Appeal agreed he had been underpaid and ordered ACC to pay him $360,000 before tax.
Firmin said friends, his dogs and going into the bush helped him keep sane.
Despite the payout, he is still fighting ACC through the courts over further errors in his payments and remains in the RCU.
Last year, Firmin discovered his case managers had been using bogus names.
‘‘All these emotions of anger and frustration came back . . . to realise I was talking to nobody.’’
He said he had been careful to be polite and respectful in his letters – apart from the occasional outburst of frustration after 29 years of fighting for his entitlements.
An ACC spokesman said Firmin had remained in the RCU because of his criminal history and ‘‘continual demanding behaviour in his correspondence to us and our concerns are he remains a risk if any negative decisions are issued’’.
Five case managers each used a unique pseudonym and confirmed it to clients if they asked.
Client behaviour was reviewed every six months and the practice was ‘‘completely legal’’, the spokesman said.
The number of RCU claimants has jumped from 40 in 2004 to 212 this year, but ACC declined to explain why or provide all criteria for transfers to the unit before publication.
ACC barrister and researcher Warren Forster said it was very important ACC staff were kept safe.
But he believed most people in the RCU did not pose a genuine threat.
They were there because ACC had decided they were making ‘‘unreasonable service demands’’, Forster said.
Moving people to the RCU should be assessed on a case-bycase basis and a real threat of harm to staff. Sending people to the RCU and managing them with a pseudonym exacerbated their stress and made the relationship worse, he said.
Often claimants were ‘‘crying out for help’’ because something had gone wrong with their payments and they were facing consequences such as losing home care or not being able to pay their rent or mortgage.
‘‘Most RCU clients have a sense of injustice about what the case manager has done.’’
Where there was no genuine risk, Forster said the use of pseudonyms for case managers could be challenged in court.