Monday Muses Silence is no longer an option.

Three separate occurrences in my week aided by a fourth occurrence better described as a headline question that I can answer and then news that I was expecting but hoping not to hear have combined to form the base framework for this week’s Monday Muses.

(1) The first was a very pleasant invitation to review a workshop manual for a friend who many years back invited me to hear him speak on the topic of leadership and the importance of “knowing”.

(2) The second occurrence had me reaching for every professional I could connect with as a matter of utmost urgency as it became very clear that a resident in the complex where live in was being subjected to elder abuse. It was something I had suspected for quite some time but until a short conversation I had nothing to seat the concern in.

(3) The third were words from a post that many connections sent to me even though the writer of the post has blocked me.

(4) The fourth came in the form of the headline question “Who else needs to scream before real change happens at icare?”

(5) The fifth has grown from a small irk multiple years back to a frustration that was repeated far too many times to the need to engineer a solution.

I ask you to accept my apology upfront as I know this Monday Muses will be a little bit more complex and a tad longer than I normally write, this edition is just over 3000 words. ????

(3) Oddly enough I agree with some of what is written here. Yes; the injured worker community need to have their collective voices heard through every possible channel possible. Anyone who has heard me speak both here in Australia and Internationally have heard me speak of the tragedy that engulfs all too many of the injured worker community. People have heard me speak of needing to make a choice between paying rent/mortgage paying everyday bills or buying food. People have heard me explain how a claims agent needed to revise a Breach notification because the injured worker who did not attend a required appointment simply could not afford the petrol needed in order to drive the distance between home and the required appointment. People have heard me speak of injured workers not being able to access mainstream charity food because they lack a CentreLink Healthcare Card. I do not hide the truth of what happens in far too many families within the injured worker community. I will never hide this truth because to hide it would continue to support the wider public ignorance of a very real challenge we all must tackle. However; there is also a flip side, the injured worker community desperately need heroes, they as a collective need heroes to show that there is life beyond workers compensation; as an individual they need to know that they have an injury, they are not their injury, As a collective it needs to be understood that when we lift one we lift all.

The lived experience has many facets to it, here we must acknowledge that the vast majority of people with a workplace injury return to work within the predicted medical time frame, hence the lived experience is scant to moderate time lost. Then there is the lived experience of our Paralympians who have not just won medals on the sporting arena but maintained their pre-injury employment but have taken on incredible challenges to increase their professional skills. Others have taken their lives in a totally different direction due entirely to the life changing aspects their new lives require(s) of them. There is actually nothing other than a persons own drive and determination preventing anyone from climbing their own version of Mount Everest. The wider injured worker community need to understand they own their own road.

I speak at every opportunity to provide the voice for the injured worker community, I speak of their trials and tribulation and I speak of the glory and attainment. I speak because silence simply is a cloak I will not wear. Many have gone to extreme lengths to silence me and others have paid for me to travel to the other side of the world in order to have me speak at the most elite of workers compensation conferences there are in the world.

(1)Those of you who know me know I will always reference when possible/required what I have read, however because the Workshop I have reviewed is still being worked on I am unable to reference the writer. What I can do is reference some of the books that have been used to create the Workshop.

In order to (hopefully) understand my thinking it must be understood that a person with a workplace injury lead with just two very real emotions, they lead with fear and they lead with grief. The fear is very real, it forms the basis of the fight/flight reaction. At point of injury workers compensation is for the vast majority an unknown landscape and to be honest it is the last thing that is considered. Medical attention family/friends/co-worker/employer support comes well before signing a legal document. Fear sets in because of the legalistic and oft time confronting process, fear sets in because of the urban myth(s) that surround the workers compensation process, there is always someone who will retell the “true” story of a cousin 15 times removed who got $X payout for something far less. Fear sets in because the confusion between what the medical team is saying is required and what the claims agent will pay for. There is a way to prevent the fear from taking hold. That way was created when I sat on the *Injured Worker Focus Group under the roof of WorkCover SA. Then for reason’s I have never understood that process was stopped. (I do have a private personal understanding of why this process was stopped) So we move to grief, I lost count years back of being told that a person was suffering depression or now has a personality disorder. It seems we are not allowed to speak of grief as a reality. Pre my own workplace injury there were very defined life plans mapped out, many nights after dinner the plans were laid out on the table, the week/month/yearly planner was in full view. The bank account required was worked on. There was even a date that was proposed. In less than a heart beat on the 30th May 1994 that future was shattered beyond recognition. It took me a long time to understand the immense sadness the vacant hope was not depression it was grief. Grief for a life planned, grief for the challenges that were forecast, grief for the loss of a body that worked as it should, grief for not being able to do a simple thing such as pitch a softball to a loved child, grief for no longer being able to walk or train my two rottweilers, grief for the largest of dreams to the smallest of every day needs. A friend at the time worked for a funeral company, she suggested to me that I attend one of their grief counselling sessions. It was one of the most enlightening parts of my recovery.

Now to the words that I am going to reference here from the Workshop Review. The words come from one of Daniel Pink’s books “A Whole New Mind” and “Drive the surprising truth about what motivates us”. I am shifting them here to outline the wants and requirements of the injured worker community.

 I have yet to meet any person with or without a workplace injury who does not want or hold autonomy as a high personal requirement for their own life or for the life of their loved ones. A person with a workplace injury does not have their right to autonomy removed/amputated at point of impact. If anything it is their autonomy that needs to be reinforced and supported instead of what I refer to as the current “hurry up and wait” process where a person is reduced to a claim number and instructed what they can and cannot do within the workers compensation process. Every person has the right and the responsibility and the autonomy to push their own boundaries in order to discover what they can achieve.

Mastery is a word few will ever as much as look for within the workers compensation process and scant fewer will find it. Yet when a person is faced with an injury that has altered life as it was understood it is paramount that mastery be set as the end outcome. Pre-injury I was left hand dominant, I work every day to master the ability to use my right hand to do the small things such as hang washing on the line or hold a pen and write even driving requires constant focus simply because the touch required has shifted location in my brain. I will work every day till I am no longer here to master the use of my right hand. It is the smallest of things that create the largest of outcomes.

Purpose is also unspoken; we all know the purpose of a fire hydrant or the purpose of a set of traffic signals. Yet we fail to believe that a person who has sustained a workplace injury has the right and the responsibility to maintain their own personal purpose. Whatever the purpose was pre-injury chances are post-injury the purpose is still in place; it may be a tad dinted and misshaped but under the debris it is still there.

 Again to reference information from the Workshop Review :Research by Professor Paul Nutt of Ohio State University found 3 key reason as to why decisions from the professional and business world fail

·        1/3 of decisions are driven by ego

·        Nearly 2/3 of executives never explore alternatives once they have made up their minds.

·        80% of managers push their decisions through by persuasion or edict not by the value of their idea.

And once more to reference Richard Grellman from his 1997 Grellman Report for WorkCover NSW- remove the silos from workers compensation.

There is absolutely no reason what so ever to support the over-complicated process that workers compensation process has by and large generated for itself. It is as The Marksman has oft said bureaucracy on steroids. The other oft heard words from The Marksman is that it is sheer fallacy to consider let alone believe that all the knowledge required is found within any bureaucracy.

If you have heard me speak you may have also heard me say that if you can understand how Monopoly is played then it is achievable to also understand the intention behind the legislation that all workers compensation jurisdictions rest on. 

(2) When it became clear to me what was actually happening was actually what I thought was happening I had to act as quickly and as concisely as was possible. That required accessing the support and the knowledge of colleagues and friends as well as mere acquaintances who could direct me to the required web sites. We have a way to go as yet in order to unravel what was happening to a man who I have described as softer than melted butter. This man has been taken advantage of for no other reason than the size of this man’s bank account, it was easy because no one was game enough or willing to look. The tragic part is what I saw in regards to the elder abuse I see all too often within the injured worker community. All too often when I have been called in to act as a community advocate to protect an exceedingly vulnerable person it has just been required to remind sections of the workers compensation system that the very same rules and regulations they require members of the injured worker community to abide by also apply to them. I have only once needed to lodge a notice of dispute because a claims agent actually didn’t think that I would stand by what I had said. The person I was protecting was illiterate and without family support: it never escaped my sense of humour that it was another case manager from the same claims agent who called me to support this particular person. Suffice to say the issue was resolved within a very short time of the Notice of Dispute being received.

The lesson is play nice, play fair, don’t just understand the rules respect them. Lives depend on each of us always bringing our best self to the situation we are in, demeaning a frail and oft times fragile person can and does have the direst of consequences that none of us want or want to live with. Trust me there is no harder funeral to stand at where the loved one inside the coffin lost such hope that life was no longer tolerable. Allow the injured worker community to walk and work in their own peace, trust them to do what is in their own best medical interest, gift to them the respect you require them to give to you.

(4) “Who else needs to scream before real change happens at icare?”  I am not good at screaming; I am good at holding the ground that I have worked hard over the many years to win. There is not one single issue confronting the New South Wales workers compensation system that cannot be resolved.

The easiest thing to do with any mess is pick a place to start and work from there. For mine in this situation I know where the correct start point is and I know how to rectify what is currently in place. I also know that the last time I checked I am not on the minister’s advisory panel. I also know that the one journalist I spent a great deal of time putting information together for who wanted to do an article on the impact the current issues with New South Wales workers compensation is generating for the injured worker community is not likely to call me to find out what my thoughts are. Hence the reason I have spent such a good deal of time today writing this edition of Monday Muses.

I am not screaming; I am however frustrated beyond the nth degree and at the same time saddened by the very system that has apparently forgotten is reason for being in place. Every employer in New South Wales is required to pay workers compensation levies, every worker in New South Wales relies on workers compensation being in place when it is required. 

It was not my plan to go to work on the 30th May 1994 to sustain an injury that would alter not just my life but the lives of my family and friends. However I am here and here I will stay because the reason I started on this odyssey all that time back to understand what this thing called workers compensation really is remains the same. I am still learning every day the impact of my own workplace injury and the challenges each day brings in regards to my ability to do everyday requirements. Plus I am still creating what The Marksman referenced as the better mouse trap. I know what I have written this evening will set in motion a raft of differing reactions. I also know some will read this and know just how far I have been pushed in order for me to react others will dismiss this as just Rosemary ranting as usual.

(5) With that in mind and because I still have your attention it came to my attention that yet another icare Foundation project is coming to an end. Again, I have known this project from almost its inception I know the level of commitment behind the project and I know the wondrous outcomes this project has achieved and I know the potential the project had. The reason I bring this up here is that in the (now infamous) Review that I authored I also wrote 5 major recommendations as well as provided the required directions to implement the recommendations. All too often over many years I have watched and been a part of funding from various workers compensation jurisdictions around Australia only to see very valuable and viable projects fall for the lack of one key requirement. It truly is one of the smallest and simplest requirements that falls under the heading of “the right thing to do”.

The latest article in the media is exceedingly concerning; I will not argue with the depth or the importance of information that is coming out into the public arena. Much of it was scant less than an open secret within the industry. Just about every industry people I speak with are all but “lining up to buy a ticket for the Royal Commission” My only comment in regard to this is that right now the New South Wales workers compensation system needs something is immensely urgent and that as far as I can see is not happening, the need for a cool head and a steady hand is paramount. There is a way to steady the industry.

For now though it is time to leave you with a song It is my heartfelt belief that Craig’s Table has the ability to provide the framework for every aspect of the workers compensation process to regroup and reframe itself. The injured worker community does have stories to share some good some bad and some beyond ugly. The injured worker community are neither AWOL or MIA; the injured worker community are for far too many people just invisible. In truth it is time to invite the injured worker community to the discussion table as was once the situation when WorkCover SA was in place.

Before I go a belated Happy Father's Day for yesterday to all the wonderful Dad's out there. As with many I sat in happy memories of my late Dad, I recited his favourite William Wordsworth poem I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud and shared a happy memory pot of tea with my Dad. I keep hoping that I will find some happy news to share. Mayhaps that will come next week.

Yours in service

Rosemary

* I also have a personal and professional belief as to why the Injured Worker Focus Group was shut down. Knowing it and proving it are always two different things.