Company doctor found to favour firm, not workers

A doctor employed by a Hawkes Bay freezing works has been found guilty of professional misconduct for his part in a "climate of confrontation" said to have existed between the company and its workers.

The plant's identity cannot be revealed as the doctor has been granted interim name suppression by the Medical Practitioners' Disciplinary Tribunal.

That order may be lifted in the new year when the tribunal passes sentence.

The tribunal found the doctor was wrong to refuse to accept a worker contracted the debilitating disease leptospirosis in 2001, thus denying him accident compensation for six months.

Workers at the plant say the decision may pave the way for retrospective claims from others who believe the doctor wrongly diagnosed or refused them compensation.

The tribunal found his primary focus was on protecting the company rather than treating the patient. All his efforts went on trying to find possible non-work causes of the illness.

He refused to sign a certificate to enable the worker to claim compensation, causing stress and financial hardship for the 38-year-old father of eight, who was hospitalised and diagnosed by other doctors as having leptospirosis.

He was restricted in his ability to work and prevented from receiving compensation for six months, leaving him struggling to pay his mortgage and other bills.

The disease is spread by contaminated animal urine and the man worked in a high-risk area, cutting pelts of sheep and other animals.

The doctor's wife, who works with him, told the Weekend Herald he had not decided whether to appeal the finding.

"Of course he's unhappy with the decision," she said.

Accident compensation levies imposed on employers are based on assessments of injury rates and the level of risk of illness or injury caused by the working environment.

Health and safety issues are also raised where numbers of workers are injured or become ill in the same workplace.

An Accident Compensation Corporation spokesman said he had difficulty commenting on the case without knowing whether his organisation had direct responsibility for claims from the company's workers, or whether it was part of an accredited "partnership" programme.

The latter would give the company initial responsibility, although any decision to refuse compensation could be challenged before an independent review agency, which he acknowledged was a corporation subsidiary.

The company's chief operations officer said it had only recently assumed ownership of the meat plant concerned, and he did not know whether the operation was part of the partnership programme.

But Council of Trade Unions president Ross Wilson said the corporation could not escape ultimate responsibility for auditing participants, especially as the programme gave employers a vested interest in turning down compensation claims.

He said the tribunal decision vindicated union concerns that meat firms were intolerant of injury claims.