ACC battle ends in despair
An Invercargill man says he feels betrayed by the system after the ACC said they’d be unable to give him back pay.
David Simpson has been battling with ACC for back pay related to a mental injury: post traumatic stress disorder.
His fight led him to a petition for a change to the Accident Compensation
Act and he was asked to present his case to the the Education and Workforce Committee in 2019.
Under current legislation, however, the ACC say Simpson’s case does not meet the requirements for a payment outside of legal entitlement.
‘‘In order for us to make a payment of this nature, we must have committed a serious service failure, and the client must have experienced financial loss because of our actions,’’ an ACC spokesperson said. ‘‘We’ve looked into whether this could be a possibility for Mr Simpson but his case does not meet the criteria,’’ the spokesperson said.
The Education and Workforce Committee’s response to Simpson’s petition says ‘‘we were deeply moved by the petitioner’s submission and note that ACC is able to make payments outside statutory entitlements. It is not appropriate for this committee to direct ACC in this regard. We reiterate the concerns about the hardship that people can experience when people are seeking treatment for their injuries over many years’’.
‘‘We encourage ACC to take note of our report,’’ the committee says.
In a letter sent to Simpson on Wednesday, ACC team leader Megan Thomas said details of his case had been referred to ACC’s technical specialists following the Education and Workforce Committee’s response.
ACC technical specialist Michael Bockett found there were ‘‘no clear or obvious customer service failures by ACC’’ and ‘‘there did not appear to be any need to consider any actual and quantifiable financial loss.’’
An ACC spokesperson said the agency would continue providing support like counselling, social rehabilitation and medical assessments. ‘‘We’ve also paid him an independence allowance,’’ the spokesperson said.
Simpson first lodged his sensitive claims case in 1997.
He also has a physical injury claim submitted in 1991.
Simpson received counselling in 1997 and an independent allowance payment in 2019.
But his battle has been about claiming an independence allowance between his 1997 submission and 2018.
The latest Accident Compensation Act was introduced in 2001, limiting lump sum payments for injuries sustained before 1999.
Simpson said it wasn’t until he phoned the ACC about something else in 2018, that he was reminded of his sensitive claim.
He feels let down that no-one worked through proper procedures with him, he said.
Now in his early 60s, Simpson said he was sexually abused by his alcoholic mother as a child.
He says this was partly to blame for post traumatic stress disorder, drug and alcohol addictions and years of gang life and jail stints.
Simpson spent the ‘80s going in and out of prisons and treatment centres, he said, so his medical history was well documented.
He was frustrated that no-one had explained the ACC claim process to him and he didn’t want other people to struggle.
The ACC wrote to Simpson on Wednesday, informing him that it had found no serious errors in the management of his case and therefore could not make an additional payment.