Newlywed stung by ACC loophole
Legal oddity disqualifies man left injured by surgery
Atreatment injury has ended newlywed cancer survivor Darren Ludlam’s working life. And he worries about how he and his bride, Sonya, will be able to support a family should they have children.
The 51-year-old is living on income insurance, had to cash in investments and KiwiSaver and cannot receive any ACC earnings-related payments in an “unlucky” set of circumstances.
Ludlam was a telecommunications company sales manager earning $72,000-plus a year when he was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 2011.
Facing chemotherapy and stomach-removal surgery, he was advised by doctors to stop working if he could.
He had no sick leave or holidays left. He does have income-protection insurance — which pays about $33,000 a year — but to receive it he had to resign, which he did in January 2012. The insurance stops him getting a state benefit.
His first operation was in April 2012. Days later the wound became infected, leading to seven hernia operations and two smaller procedures. Surgical mesh was used in some of the repairs and although he has had no recurrence of cancer, he suffers chronic pain and has trouble with concentration.
He has “permanent occupational disablement”, according to an occupational physician and neuropsychologist, and cannot return to work.
But because he wasn’t employed and earning within 28 days before the infection, he is not entitled to weekly compensation from ACC, which would be 80 per cent of his pre-injury pay.
“It was just bad Ludlam says.
He took his case to review but lost, ACC arguing he simply didn’t meet the legal criteria.
“I find it ludicrous that someone can undertake a luck,” home tattoo and get an infection and be covered and yet someone who gets a hospital infection which leads to multiple surgeries and subsequent permanent disablement is not.”
Ludlam and his new wife, 40, wed on Saturday but the ACC decision casts a shadow over their joy.
“If we have children, which Sonya would like to, and she stops work, [the insurance] isn’t going to be enough.”
When Tamaki MP Simon O’Connor (National) asked ACC Minister Nikki Kaye about the case last year, she wrote to him that the law sought to balance compensating those unable to work because of injury against reasonable limits on entitlements, so ACC remained fair and sustainable.
“I sympathise with Mr Ludlam’s situation, and I have asked officials to look at a number of cover and entitlement areas over coming months to see whether there is a case for change.”
However, Acting ACC Minister Nathan Guy told the Herald: “The existing rules that apply to cases such as this are well settled in law and within the courts . . . we have no immediate plans for change in this area.”
HFor a video go to nzherald.co.nz
I find it ludicrous that someone can undertake a home tattoo and get an infection and be covered and yet someone who gets a hospital infection . . . is not. Darren Ludlam