Monday Muses :in loving memory and in hope

In Memory of Adrian John (Jackie) November 2nd 1953 -November 30th 1969.

For as long as I can remember there were things set in stone; things in my life that despite knowing all the challenges that would be needed to be met head-on. I knew everything that I needed and was required to know I knew where the greatest challenge would be and would come from mostly, I knew without ever needing to question I had a hero who would always be there no matter the challenge and no matter the barriers. 

On the morning of 30th November 1969 there was something else that I knew. I knew that at 9.30am on the 1st December 1969, along with everyone else in my third-year class (it is now referred to as yr 11) I would gather my required pens and rulers and set squares, then make my way to the school library, sit at the assigned desk for a math exam. I wasn’t overly concerned about any of the exams, I had done all the study that was needed and had done more than required reading. My weakest subject was not one that mattered for a place at university.

That Sunday morning was normal, my parents owned a small transport business, my brother had just turned 16. There was chatter around the breakfast table. My parents and brother left for the day’s work.

My schedule was set; as it had been since the first day of high school in 1967. The schedule was very focused. The plan- finish high school in 1970, start university 1971, graduate university 1975, start teaching science 1976.

Everything was in place. I was on track to achieve what many of my family thought and oft said was impossible. None of my family had ever dreamed planned scheduled so big in the past, my brother walked every step with me, there were no dragons he could not or would not slay in order to have the plan come to be.

I knew all of that and countless of other things on the morning of the 30th November 1969. It never occurred to me as it never occurs to anyone that life would not go as per the schedule.

Everything changed, actually that is wrong, everything shattered; one of my older brothers arrived later that night. I knew by the way he arrived that there had been an accident and that someone had died. Then he said the words that even now sitting here 51 years later I can still hear “Jackie’s dead”

My hero, my protector, my brother, the one who knew me understood me, laughed with me laughed at me, goaded me guided me, the one who was always there my entire life had lost his life in a workplace incident.

Everything stopped, there was no air in the room, nothing made sense and nothing would make sense for years to come. If the world had stopped spinning right there and then I would not have noticed.

There were no exams for me to end 1969, I had to be convinced just to attend Jackie’s funeral. For me it became a struggle just to get through the day.

The day of the funeral I was given a piece of something to read that made no sense to me what so ever; I told my Dad that I would recite Clancy of the Overflow or say nothing. Clancy of the Overflow was my brothers favourite piece of poetry in the end I said nothing. I stopped speaking for 18 months.

I never made it to university; without my hero I was unable to rise to meet the challenge.

Unknowingly and unwillingly and unwanted on the 30th November 1969 I became an advocate for workplace safety.

Which is very ironic because everything I did after Jackie died had to be safe- it is correct that I have done lot of truly dangerous things, all of it though was very calculated and the risks known; I never once felt unsafe. And still I sustained my own workplace injury even though I had done everything possible to prevent the injury from happening. (this is the part that John Lennon speaks of when he said “Life is what happens when you are making other plans”

It was never my intention to become an advocate within the injured worker community, my intention was to understand what was happening within my own life and the life of my family. The more I searched for simple truths the more bizarre things appeared to be. The system didn’t know my name, everything had to have a computer-generated number. Trying to comprehend the process was akin to playing Jenga each input held the possibility of collapse and implosion. Light reading turned into research; research turned into challenges; challenges came from The Marksman; turning into more reading and more research and writing, speaking and advocating. Trust me there were times when I was very glad I wore long skirts, no one could see my knees shaking or threatening to buckle under me. Craig’s Table came from the need to understand, the need to belong “somewhere” and to fill the spaces the professional providers had no idea how or ability to fill.

The loss of lives within the Gig Economy workers and the concern of fatigue within the transport industry haunts me in ways I cannot explain, I know what that knock on the door sounds and feels like.

Then there is the unspoken and the unspeakable issues of loss of life by suicide due to the workplace or the workers compensation process. As hard as it used to be for me to acknowledge it; I attempted suicide 3 times during my time on workers compensation, I have stood with grieving families at funerals, I have held the hands of a person who was the injured worker but who’s partner could no longer carry the pressures involved, ending everything via suicide. I have stood with a person as they stood on the edge of a building desperately searching for words and promises. I have answered calls for help from all sections of the workers compensation industry (including a minister’s office) not because I am stronger or more resilient or know more than others known, I answer those calls because I know the sound of that knock and those words.

We have to stop pretending that everything will be alright, each and every one of us know that it will not be alright, each and every one of us has been touched by contemplated. attempted or completed suicide.

Sadly I was notified of yet another workplace suicide just this morning, tonight as others read this there is a family trying desperately to make sense of the senseless. Parents have lost a son, a wife has lost her husband, children have lost their Dad, workmates have lost a mate. There are no words to bridge this gap to heal this loss, there will only ever be endless questions.

There are (currently) no 1800 numbers for those who need support from the utter madness their lives have become. The reason there is no 1800 number is because the system denies the reality of suicide within its framework. Instead it outsources the responsibility of suicide prevention to other providers who have no concept of workers compensation let alone how the machinery that drives workers compensation works.

Last week I sat with a once proud man who openly admitted he was not struggling because of the workplace injuries; he was/is struggling because of the impact the “screw up” (polite version) that has happened and now needs to be resolved before an others life is lost to suicide. Once more I was looking for words of hope for a family to hold steadfast and believe that a resolution will be found. (thus far all I have found is a lot of closed doors one slammed shut door and what even I am hoping is a start point.)  I am constantly aware that everything I do has the ability to run yet another red flag up the flag pole; this particular family have already endured more than they should ever be asked to.

 Beyond that the ever-growing never ceasing drive to enable members of the injured worker community never ceases. -Newsflash even the professional strangers within workers compensation need support that they are currently not getting.

If you have ever heard me speak you will have heard me say that we are all members of the injured worker community, there is no us or them, there is only community. Workers compensation is really only as strong as the weakest of us.

As I sit here today, I feel the loss of my brother, I feel the loss of everything that my own injury delivered not just to myself but to my family. Loss includes things I had never considered would rip me apart such as never being able to trust my hands to gather to me precious new born babies be they grandchildren or other precious wee ones.

Every week there are calls for all manner of help which in reality really are nothing more than the need for the caller to be heard listened to and understood. There are no KPI’s to be met, there are no budgets to be mindful of, there are no forms to fill in no clocks to watch for billable minutes, there are no reports to read. There are just people in need of a hand to steady them. Workers compensation itself has forgotten that people are and always will be for more important than any black ink on white paper policy.

Silence is no longer an option I can select.

For the most part I agree with Helen Keller, what I have learned over many years is that danger oft lurks where it should have no ability to step over the welcome mat and at other times what should be a steady hand turns out to be nought more than an untruth spoken often enough that it has become believed. We would no more allow a child to cross a highway alone than we would expect a traveler from a foreign land to navigate unaided, yet we expect/require/demand someone with a workplace injury to gain all that is required to be known at the moment of impact of the very incident that tipped them into a workers compensation claim.

We can and we must do better. (Just as an aside tools do exist to assist both employers and injured workers, I know I designed some and helped to write others)

One of the people I spoke with last week in regards to Injured Worker Well-Being Week asked me what it is that I am aiming for as an outcome. I do have a list of “wants”; all of them start and end with equity and adherence to what is right and what is fair and what supports those within the injured worker community to grow past workplace injury- as I have said in many places over many long years, every injured worker has both the right and the responsibility to return to the open workplace.

It is time that the injured worker community was required to be within the workers compensation process. The time of and for Darwinian thinking has passed, it really is time to admit that the workers compensation concept starts and ends with employers and injured workers. The days of silo thinking and fiefdoms have ceased.

Before I end as much as everyone else I do not like footnotes. But here are footnotes that needs to be understood.

We hear about early intervention and getting people back to work, but none of that ever takes into account the impact of the entire workplace injury of the person who has sustained the injury. I have had countless conversations with members of the injured worker community all wondering where the “early intervention assistance” actually is- seems that early intervention is another concept that needs to be workshopped with a group of injured workers.

I am also exhausted from the term “lived experience” the industry says it wants to learn from “lived experience”

Truth is the industry doesn’t want to learn from “lived experience”! if it did there would be injured worker advisory groups attached to every aspect of the workers compensation process, the very people who the industry needs to learn from are not found behind a university lectern; they are found on the spreadsheets containing claims numbers.

The truth is rarely pleasant and the truth is rarely comfortable however as I said to a colleague just recently “it is time to pull on our collective big girl pants leave fragile egos at the door and have an adult conversation about what is in the best interest of everyone, not just the big end of town”.  Open the door for the injured worker community, the conversation will be frank and honest and embarrassing, but it will be the truth.  

Tonight for dinner I will have a bowl of tomato soup and toast cut into soliders- my brothers favourite meal. I ask only one thing of each of you, tell your loved ones just how important they are to you, I have spent 51 years trying to remember the last words I spoke to Jackie and thus far I am not able to recall anything.

Yours in service

Rosemary.