Her 4-year-old son has celiac disease and type 1 diabetes, requiring multiple daily insulin injections for survival. He is also hypo unaware, meaning he doesn’t show symptoms when his blood sugar drops, which can be fatal.
In a letter accompanying the woman’s benefit application, a Starship doctor wrote: “It is essential that all individuals involved in [the boy’s] care are appropriately trained and confident in the management of his diabetes.”
The letter included nine bullet points detailing the constant, intensive care and monitoring the boy needed, and life-threatening consequences if that care was not delivered.
Despite that, the woman was declined the Supported Living Payment – though she only found out when she called Work and Income about another matter.
She said: “It was more of sort of a side question of, ‘by the way, what’s happening?’.
“And somebody told me that it had been declined because its level of care wasn’t considered to be high enough.”
She never received a written decision or explanation and decided not to argue the case, saying: “I just sort of figured they’ve decided it’s diabetes, they don’t cover diabetes and that’s the end of it.”
However, she contacted RNZ after reading a similar story and RNZ’s inquiries have revealed MSD was mistaken.
She said she was frustrated by that, adding: “I don’t think that it was reviewed properly because the information that I gave them and the certificate from the doctor ... said that, ‘no, this was something that would require a lot of additional care’.
“He is in hospital quite regularly, and that sort of thing, that seems to meet their criteria.
“I don’t know who is reviewing these things, what qualifications they have and what understanding they have of the conditions that they’re considering.”
In a statement, the Ministry of Social Development’s client service delivery group general manager, Graham Allpress, said the woman should have been granted the benefit.
He said she was originally declined because it was considered that the level of care her son required didn’t meet the “institutional-level care” threshold.
He said: “We apologise to [the woman] and her son and will work with them to correct this decision.
“On review, the information from the doctor and paediatric expert outlines the significant level of care her son needs, and that this requires her to be present and available for him throughout the day.”
That was not fully taken into account initially, he said.
- RNZ
