Top court hears case for carers

Relief caregivers paid $3 an hour for helping the elderly and disabled should have at least a minimum wage and other basic rights, a woman leading a legal challenge says.

But the Ministry of Health and Capital & Coast District Health Board, who had paid her, said the family members, friends and neighbours who were relief caregivers were ‘‘informal’’ and not ‘‘engaged’’ as employees.

About 30,000 people work as relief caregivers.

They could be friends, family, or neighbours, outside the umbrella of a formal care organisation, Crown lawyer Joanna Holden said.

It was not intended that relief caregivers would make a living from the work, and the money the ministry or board paid was a subsidy, she said.

A former relief caregiver from Kapiti, Janet Lowe, has taken a case with the backing of E tu union, for fairer pay for relievers.

Pay for the work had been $3 a hour since the early 1990s, Lowe said. That meant $75 if a relief caregiver worked a full 24 hours taking the place of the primary caregiver.

Speaking before yesterday’s hearing, Lowe said it made no sense to have a government that set a minimum wage but allowed the respite carers’ situation to continue.

‘‘I’d like something sensible and something fair; something more just than what we’ve got,’’ she said.

‘‘I know it’s a legal argument but this decision is about real people – not just us, but also the people we care for.’’

In the Employment Court Lowe won her case to be recognised as an employee, but that decision was overturned in the Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court has reserved its decision.

Lowe’s lawyer, Peter Cranney, told the five Supreme Court judges that 30,000 women did relief carer work for sums that had not changed since the early 1990s.

They were at the lowest level of the health system doing the work, Cranney said.

The state was addressing the problem of payment for caring for the elderly and disabled in the home, and the relief caregivers were probably the last big group to be addressed.

Holden told the judges that, for the relief caregivers to be engaged, there would have to have been a role in seeking and securing the services, and a degree of control and oversight of the work done.

But the primary caregivers could ‘‘pretty much’’ pick anyone they wanted to step in for them. - Fairfax NZ