Benefit scam - doctors accuse Winz

By STEPHEN COOK

Increasing numbers of unemployed people are trying to sign up for sickness benefits to avoid work testing in a move doctors claim is being encouraged by Work and Income.

Doctors and medical groups say they are being put under mounting pressure to pass able-bodied beneficiaries as unfit for work so they can claim the sickness benefit.

Work and Income does not work-test sickness beneficiaries.

The rate for the sickness benefit and the unemployment benefit - $164.16 for a single person over the age of 25 - is the same.

Doctors claim the practice is being encouraged by Work and Income staff tired of trying to find jobs for beneficiaries who are not interested in working.

Work and Income rejects the claim.

It says the number of sickness beneficiaries has increased, but this is is a long-term trend that New Zealand shares with most other OECD countries.

Ministry of Social Development figures show that in the year to April, 113,337 people were on a sickness or invalids benefit, a 7 per cent increase on the previous 12 months.

Over the same period, the numbers of people on the unemployment benefit fell by 24,708, or 25 per cent.

The chairman of the Auckland GP and Independent Practitioners Association Council, Doug Baird, said yesterday that the practice of unemployment beneficiaries trying to transfer to the sickness benefit had been going on for several years.

Once they were on a sickness benefit, he said, Winz no longer had to bother trying to find them a job.

"There are people who think the easiest way to get a benefit is to get a permanent one, and one they don't have to justify to people in authority.

"For Winz, it shifts the difficulty in dealing with these people."

The chairman of the NZ Medical Association's general practitioner council, Peter Foley, said GPs had every right to be concerned as the practice was becoming more common.

GPs should not be coerced by patients or by Winz under any circumstances.

Christchurch GP Andrew Causer said the problem had got so bad that he had put up a sign at his medical practice saying he would not do sickness benefit medical assessments for casual patients.

He said 95 per cent of the patients he saw who wanted sick-notes were fit to work.

He believed Winz staff were encouraging the unemployed to get on the sickness benefit so they no longer had to seek work for them. Getting them off the dole also made the unemployment figures look better.

Whitianga GP Rod Hickey said at least half a dozen people a week came to his surgery wanting a medical clearance to transfer from the dole to the sickness benefit.

All were physically fit, despite their claims of sore backs or mild depression.

"I even had a guy in here who claimed he was too angry to work," Dr Hickey said.

He had spoken to colleagues about the issue, and all believed it was becoming more common.

"In some places, especially areas like ours, it is just rife," he said.

Twelve other medical centres spoken to by the Herald had noticed a significant increase in the number of patients seeking medical assessments to claim the sickness benefit.

Work and Income head Ray Smith said some people did transfer from the unemployment benefit to the sickness benefit.

But when those figures were put into context with what was happening in the total benefit population, the numbers were relatively low.

The overall growth in sickness beneficiary numbers was a long-term trend that New Zealand shared with most other OECD countries.

It was important to remember that to receive a sickness or invalid benefit, claimants had to meet medical criteria, Mr Smith said.

Work and Income staff assessing sickness benefit applications relied completely on the professional opinion of doctors.

"My staff are not clinicians and operate under strict instructions," he said.

"It is the role of medical professionals to determine the state of a client's health as it might relate to that client's benefit application.

"The increase in the number of people on sickness and invalid benefits is not related to falling unemployment."



Getting sicker

Rise in number of people on sickness/invalid's benefit: 7683 - up 7 per cent for the year to the end of March.

Fall in number on unemployment benefit: 24,708 - down 25 per cent.