Court forces ACC to pay up

The medical professionals told Shaun Stanley his pain was all in his head.

But the Whangarei taxi driver knew they were wrong and his persistence has paid off, proving it was a legitimate pain in his neck more than four years after he got sick.

Mr Stanley has now won his claim for coverage from ACC for the time he was off work while sick.

For 2 years, Mr Stanley had to diagnose himself to get proper treatment and then, at his insistence, an orthopaedic appointment was requested by his GP David Van Buuren.

Relief came after orthopaedic surgeon Dr Erin Ratahi recommended surgery in July 2009 for his problems including numbness, tingling, headaches, blurred vision, chest pains, pains in the lower back, weakness in the left arm and legs and burning pains in his arms and legs.

Mr Stanley was first admitted to the Whangarei Hospital in May 2007 as a stroke patient and discharged four days later.

Following his surgery, the Accident Compensation Corporation declined cover for treatment injury. He appealed the decision and Whangarei District Court has ruled in his favour for an undisclosed amount.

Between July 2007 and June 2008, he was seen by a neurologist, an occupational medicine professor, other specialists and a psychiatrist who even diagnosed a major depressive order. Mr Stanley maintained all along to the doctors that he thought the problem lay in his spine.

"I kept saying that the problem was in my neck but they wouldn't listen. They kept saying it's in my head."

He only restarted work four months ago and reckoned he lost about $300,000 in earnings in the years he could not work and his family was forced to live in a caravan for three months.

After his surgery, two specialists wrote to Mr Stanley saying they had been asked to review their approach to similar cases in future.

"We sincerely apologise for not taking your neck symptoms more seriously previously and not referring you earlier to an orthopaedic surgeon for an opinion on the benefit of surgery," the doctors said.

For ACC purposes, consultant physician Dr Richard Lennane said the investigation and management of Mr Stanley's condition were exemplary. But Judge Roderick Joyce said Dr Lennane's argument was unconvincing. "This was a case where the patient should have been, but was not, properly heard," the judge said.