Investigate the Transport Accident Commission

Petition for an Investigation into the TAC causing hardship and distress due to case mismanagement and errors.

Preamble: In July 2011 I was seriously injured in a head-on car crash. After the surgery and post operative recovery I was told that my case would be under the TAC jurisdiction, and that this organisation would look after my medical needs and support me financially until I was able to do this for myself. The TAC is funded through the mandatory insurance payment linked with Victorian registration fees and every vehicle on the road pays this insurance yearly.

My experience dealing with the TAC has been one of continued stress and tears, and at times total disbelief that an organisation created to support has become so lost that they now behave as if they are a penny pinching insurance company. The TAC will often take an adversarial position instead of recognising that they are dealing with people whose lives and physical capabilities have changed, leaving them vulnerable and anxious.

Each of the points made below have happened to me on numerous occasions and I am able to provide actual evidence to support them. People who have been seriously injured in a transport accident need to be able to feel like valued and independent adults. The TAC prefers to render us helpless and dependent on the goodness of family, friends and neighbors to provide adequate levels of care. I am not special and this is not just happening to me. I have been told by other TAC recipients of the constant stress of dealing with an organisation that is simply not listening and treating them as ‘probable rorters’ of the system; I was disdainfully asked by one TAC employee what I would do if I hadn’t been in an accident when I complained about lack of support.

This petition requests the Victorian Government to conduct an urgent investigation of the TAC processes and procedures in the following areas:

• Continuous mistakes in depositing Loss of Earning payments, where these payments are either not deposited or the incorrect amount deposited. Currently there is no penalty incurred by the TAC, therefore very little accountability taken by them.

• Delayed action on requested authorisation for necessary equipment, services or repair of equipment. At times this can blow out to several months, causing acute anxiety, physical pain and hardship.

• Why doctors insist on early/fast discharge from hospital or rehab facility of seriously injured patients before they are medically and/or emotionally ready. This comes with "recommendations" from treating doctors that patients not able to return to their home go to a motel, family or friends place or even assisted care facility. If rehab is still ongoing on a daily basis and the patient is unable to care for themselves, then surely the Rehab hospital is the best place to be?

• Insufficient access/time for injured people to support services such as cleaning, shopping and gardening.

• Absolutely no provision or access to taxi services for personal needs for long term injured person other than accident related medical and physio appointments. We are disabled due to an accident, not because we can't be bothered to drive. The TAC claims we would have had to pay for transport to these anyway...but I can assure them that it would not have cost me $25 each way to get to the next suburb which is what Taxi charges are.

• The TAC’s process of changing from Loss of Earning (LOE) payment to Loss of Capacity (LOC) payments are not known well enough by support workers such as OT’s and GP’s. The client is unable to prepare or even know how either of these payments is assessed.

• Process of changing from LOE to LOC payments is not accurately assessed, with the TAC using Tax Assessments primarily, rather than ascertaining the injured person’s Loss of Capacity by discovering their actual skill levels and capacity.

• There is no penalty applied to TAC for continuous errors, regardless of the severity or multiple repetition of error. The TAC discontinues financial support after three years, even if the person's case has not been finalised. This financial support stops even if TAC is at fault, due to mismanagement and errors, in finalising the final impairment assessment. At this point the injured person is at the mercy of Centrelink.

• TAC case managers do not meet face to face with long term seriously injured persons in order to make an informed assessment of the person’s injuries, capabilities and care circumstances. Instead they rely on costly assessments by OT’s who may or may not have the appropriate levels of expertise to be able to provide this without prejudice.