Total cost of Bay of Plenty gun injuries revealed but not definitive, hunter says

There were 46 new gun-related ACC claims for the Bay of Plenty in 2020. Photo / File

The Bay of Plenty was one of six regions in New Zealand that received more firearm-related injury claims in 2020 compared to the previous year.

It comes as ACC, which accepts two million injury claims each year, equating to more than 5,000 a day, reveals 90 per cent of all injuries were preventable.

There were 46 new gun-related ACC claims for the Bay of Plenty in 2020, the fourth highest of all regions in the country.

Last month, Bay of Plenty DHB data released under the Official Information Act showed 38 people had been hospitalised for gunshot wounds over the same five year period.

Lakes DHB treated seven people over the same five-year period for gunshot injuries.

Police said gang rivalries were to blame for much of the bloodshed.

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Meanwhile, costs for the region totalled $182,324 over the past five years between 2016 and 2020 but had fallen each year.

The most common injury claim was neck sprain, followed by a lumbar sprain, open wound of hand, tooth symptom and sprain of the shoulder or upper arm.

Firearms Safety Council Aotearoa New Zealand chairman Joe Green said it was near impossible to directly attribute the injury claims directly to firearms.

He said most firearm-related injuries were best described as the environment they were used in, which could include someone tripping over while hunting.

Any injury claim where a gun or firearm was present would come out in the data search by ACC, Green said.

"The information collated becomes very difficult to attribute directly to firearms," he said.

"Firearms users need to develop safety consciousness about all aspects of their activity, whether at home, in the field, or on the range.

"They need to be aware of their environment, and the hazards in that environment, and take steps to keep themselves and others, including their community, safe."

A police spokeswoman said they would not be able to comment on the ACC data.

She said not all instances of firearms-related injuries were reported to police, therefore the information they held was limited.

Firearms Safety Council Aotearoa New Zealand chairman Joe Green. Photo / Supplied

Meanwhile, the cost of ACC accepting all its two million injury claims comes to more than $4 billion annually.

In the Bay of Plenty alone in 2020, ACC accepted 144,442 injury claims for a cost of more than $307 million to help people recover.

Each year, ACC pumps $80m into injury prevention to try and reduce the number and severity of injuries people suffer.

ACC head of injury prevention Isaac Carlson said people could do more to look out for themselves and others.

"Injury harm continues to be unacceptably high, which impacts the wellbeing of the entire country," he said.

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"We want people to be out there and doing the things that they love, and living life to the full, but we also want to collectively change our mindset on preventing injury."

To combat this, ACC launched an injury prevention campaign over the weekend called Preventable, which encouraged Kiwis to assess the risks at home, work and play.

It was thought 90 per cent of injuries weren't random, unconnected or unpredictable, Carlson said.

He said pausing for a few seconds to think about risks could save days, weeks, months or even a lifetime of harm.