About

Diary of a workcover victim

Were you injured at work? So was I! I became a disposable inconvenience because I was injured at work!

Why is this site so important?

Someday you or a loved one may be face to face with the WorkCover system and their Illegal activities, knowledge is your best defence. This site will help you navigate through the murky waters of the workers compensation system, and whilst my experience with workcover occurred in Victoria (Australia), I sincerely believe that it crosses all states and even borders with respect to the insane challenges and nightmares that a workplace injury can create, within any workers compensation framework or scheme that I am aware of.

My message to injured workers (and their supporters)

My message is simple and that is that you have to do your own research into the workers compensation laws relevant in your state or country; you really need to keep well informed and remember at all times that people advising or assisting you are most often not working in you best interest.

From my own experience I found that “mistakes” and “oversights” occur all the time. Like you, when I was first injured at work I did not know my rights – they were certainly never given to me by my workcover insurer, and I was and am treated with utter contempt and disrespect by my workcover insurance company, and also by my (now former) employer.

Knowledge is your only power!

aworkcovervictimsdiary.com

A Diary of a WorkCover Victim- kick-started by seriously injured “Workcovervictim” in August 2011- has been designed and developed by a bunch of seriously injured workcover victims (and their families) who have-unfortunately- been dealing with the real workcover for too many years…

This site was born out of my sheer frustration, anger and grief regarding the workcover system where all is not made clear, where the waters are very murky, and when the chips are down, the very people who are responsible for duty of care and support simply choose to ignore you, the injured worker. Remember all stakeholders (i.e. independent medical doctor; insurance doctor; rehab service providers etc. are accountable to and will perform in a way to please the hand that feeds them – yes, it is all about money.

I hope this site, our and many other injured workers’ stories will somehow help other injured workers navigating the murky waters of the workcover system, and , at the very least, be extremely diligent in finding out their legitimate rights, always questioning the “system” in order to keep some sort of control within the workcover system.

The workers compensation is – in my opinion- extremely adversarial and they use tactics to wear you down, to make you emotionally bleed out, to break you, all in order to weaken your position and to maximise their insane profits.

Because I had been seriously injured at work, I have – like you- become the “suspect” and the “enemy”. My own experience has thought me to fully distrust the insurance company or the case manager – their attitudes and behaviours has led me to realise that “humanity” is something that is not exercised nor understood by them.

Even though liability was accepted for my injury, I was and am still treated (like you) as guilty and with suspicion. So I knew (an you will learn) that it was and is up to me (you) to protect yourself and to treat everybody with suspicion and distrust in return. No one is there for my or your protection; except my/your lawyer!

In a workcover situation it is my experience and opinion that injured workers are treated as guilty by all parties – which is insane, given that in Australia even the worst criminals are afforded the right of being innocent until proven guilty.

I continue to try to hold it together and to be strong and I will continue to stand up for our injured workers’ rights and will not be beaten.

I dedicate this site to all injured workers who have been abused by the adversarial workcover compensation system and/or the workplace. May they never give up, may they fight like warrior for their legitimate rights, and, most importantly, may they hold onto their dignity, self-respect, self-esteem and sanity; and may they WIN!

A workcover victims diary is supported by Erin Brockovich

Erin Brockovich & WorkCover Victim

On 23 March 2012, Erin Brockovich, personally visited the kick-starter of aworkcovervictimsdiary.com. Erin was moved with the kick starter’s personal and most extraordinary work injury, and unimaginable ill-treatments received at the hands of the workcover insurance company, but she was also – and more importantly – most impressed with the work done by aworkcovervictimsdiary.com!

Aims of this blog:

To provide information, education and referral advice for injured workcover victims. Knowledge is our only defense!
To share my own experience with the adversarial workers compensation system – it’s all about money, their great motivator
To facilitate sharing of experiences of injured workcover victims
To expose the workcover insurer frauds, scams and dirty tactics – every trick in the book to trip you up, or make you say or do something that they can use against you
To exchange and share useful tips and tricks with fellow workcover victims
To offer a place where injured workcover victims (and TAC victims) are welcome, loved, respected, understood and where they can find a sense of belonging; a place where they can speak their minds, seek and offer support and where they can hopefully find a little comfort, a bit of a laugh, a dose of courage and some strength to continue their endless battles for their lawful entitlements, so often wrongfully denied
To advocate improved rights and benefits for injured workcover victims
To be the VOICE of injured workers
To offer a bit of a “venting” place for those injured workers, who – like me – are sick and tired and frustrated with the whole, unfair, hair-raising, mind-numbing, rotten workcover system
To empower you to stand up for your rights and to not put up with any crap from anybody!
Help you to be diligent and to remember at all times to exert “due diligence” throughout your workcover ordeal
To help you not to be entrapped by anyone (case manager, IME etc).
To show and teach you that you are not alone and that you are not powerless – to make you aware of your rights and help you flaunt them – here lies your power
TO KICK BUTT TOGETHER!

Whilst we do our very best to source and provide accurate information, all the information provided in this blog should, under no circumstances, be substituted for professional legal advice! Also, unless specifically stated, the posts and articles in this blog refer to the Victorian (Australian) relevant workers compensation and related laws only. The relevant laws are different in every state, so it is important that you seek up-to-date information about the relevant legislation in your state.

The opinions in this blog are of course solely my and my co-authors own

Commenting and sharing your stories

You are most welcome, and in fact we strongly encourage you to comment on posts, feedback and/or share your own stories. You can email us directly should you wish us to publish your story directly (e.g send us your story in an email or via an attachment in Word or PDF etc .You can also use our new anonymous ‘share your story’ page to upload and share your stories in uttermost confidentiality there.

You can use the “comment” form under each post to comment. To do so you will need to use a name (which can be anything fictitious such as “victim”, “newbie”, “I hate them”, whatever) and an email address. The email address can be entirely made up as well, should you prefer to remain anonymous (mind you, using your real email address is also safe, as it will NOT be published and your email will only be visible to the blog’s administrator), however, due to potential hacking or snooping, we suggest you use a fake email address at all times to comment (so that in the unlikely event of a successful hack your email address can not be stolen). A fictitious email address can be anything as long as there is a “@” in it and a ”com”; for example “nothing@whatever.com”; “fake@fake.com”.

We approve all comments except those that are automated spams and those that are totally unrelated to the topics discussed but are just a way to try and advertise for an (unrelated) product or service. Don’t even think about spamming this blog – we ‘re watching 24/7!

The blog also has a “share a workcover tip page” where you can post a tip or a trick about anything remotely related to workcover. e.g How to deal with a difficult case manager; what to look out for; etc.

Resources

Under Resources you’ll find some useful articles, research, reports, relevant legislation, real judgement cases etc. Any and all contributions are most welcome.

Security

This blog runs special , live security software 24/7 and is continuously monitored for any attempted intrusions. All attempted intruders’ IP addresses are dutifully tracked, recorded and published. (and banned).

Workcover employees (i.e. case managers etc.) are NOT welcome to register with our forum. Those who do so will have their name, email and IP address publicly published for their employer(s), friends, colleagues, family and the world to see.

Suggestions and feedback

We most welcome any suggestions for improvement(s) and topics for discussions etc. Just email us or post a comment and consider it done!

Twitter

We follow back those lovely people who make the kind effort to follow me, with a few exceptions: We’re not into porn (!),and we don’t follow spammers (people that follow in the hope to advertise totally unrelated stuff). And we unfollow those who unfollow us!

Spelling

We apologise for the many spelling mistakes. Some of us have very severe injuries, cannot type and use voice recognition software to dictate posts and many times the software will mistake a word for another. Please forgive Dragon Naturally Speaking…

When we are in too much pain to dictate (which is unfortunately quite often) — even from the relative comfort of our couches and supportive pillows to prevent certain limbs of falling out of their sockets (I kid you not) — or when we doze of (severe pain makes night time sleep problematic, hence Nana-naps are frequent), our family members and/ or friends type / enter our posts for us.

Media

Contact via email “info@aworkcovervictimsdiary.com’

Copyright

Feel free to use any posted articles or excerpts, the point is indeed to spread the word. However you must refer the articles or excerpts back to www.aworkcovervictimsdiary.com so that this site also gains more public visibility.

Disclaimer

By entering, browsing and viewing the content of this blog you agree to the terms and conditions of this blog!

Names of injured workers, dates, injuries or images of injured people may not reflect current and/or accurate information and may not be relied upon as evidence in a court of law. Any information provided by any injured worker is to be considered non factual and, again, may not be relied upon in a court of law.
To those taking the time to read our blog-thank you so very much for taking time out of your busy day to read our thoughts. We appreciate each and every one of you.