Why Was I Still Waiting for CCI? - January 2023

January 2023: my doctor and I were still trying to get the workers’ compensation system to work as intended.

On 13 January 2023, I sent an update to TAL, the insurer providing income protection.

I supplied the doctor’s statement TAL had requested. I also explained where things stood with Catholic Church Insurance (CCI), my employer, Australian Catholic University (ACU), and the regulator I was still asking to secure basic cooperation.

TAL was helping me survive while I continued trying to make the workers’ compensation scheme do what it was supposed to do: support recovery, coordinate injury management and facilitate a safe return to work.

Without TAL’s income protection, I believe I would have been annihilated long before this point. People can interpret that word however they wish. I know what it means to have your financial security, health, independence and ability to keep asking for help worn down together.

From where I stood, this had become a process of human elimination. You could keep supplying documents, attending appointments and asking for cooperation—and still be left waiting for the protection the scheme was supposed to provide.

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12 December 2022: TAL asked for an update

On 12 December 2022, a TAL claims consultant emailed after speaking with me. Following my last medical update, TAL requested a further doctor’s statement to assist with managing and planning ahead on the income protection claim.

My nominated treating doctor completed TAL’s Progress Attending Doctor’s Statement on 10 January 2023.

The issue is what my doctor documented about the obstacles to recovery and return to work—and the cooperation we were still waiting for.

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10 January 2023: “workplace not facilitating this”

The TAL form asked whether there were complicating factors affecting or prolonging my recovery.

My doctor answered yes and recorded:

“ongoing workplace bullying/stress in the context of workers comp claim”

That matters. My doctor identified continuing circumstances connected with the workplace and the claim as factors prolonging recovery.

I was seeking treatment while still trying to obtain cooperation from the institutions responsible for injury management. The circumstances surrounding the claim were continuing to affect me.

Then came the question about suitable duties.

My doctor wrote:

“always been able to perform suitable duties — workplace not facilitating this”

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“Always been able.”

Those words deserve attention.

The statement recorded capacity for suitable duties alongside the workplace’s failure to facilitate them.

Where was the practical response? Where was the coordination with my nominated treating doctor to identify appropriate duties and establish the conditions for a safe return?

I wanted to recover in my job. My doctor’s statement shows that suitable duties remained an issue requiring action.

The form also asked whether a return-to-work plan or rehabilitation had been considered. My doctor marked yes and wrote:

“awaiting this from CCI”

There it was, on 10 January 2023, in the medical statement prepared for the insurer helping keep me financially afloat.

We were still waiting for CCI.

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More than two and a half years after my Injury Management Plan

My Injury Management Plan had been issued on 25 June 2020.

By 10 January 2023, more than two and a half years had passed. Yet my doctor was still recording that return-to-work planning was awaiting CCI.

Three days later, I was asking whether CCI would finally cooperate to implement the injury management plan agreement.

How does that become an acceptable state of affairs?

How does an injured worker remain responsible for chasing cooperation year after year while the institutions with the resources, lawyers and claims machinery continue controlling the process?

Time was not standing still for me. Treatment continued. Financial pressure continued. The burden of correspondence continued. So did the need to explain, again, why dealings with CCI had themselves become distressing.

Every further delay happened inside a human life.

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13 January 2023: three simple questions

In my update to TAL on 13 January 2023, I supplied the requested doctor’s statement and explained:

“I’m waiting for SIRA to ensure CCI answer three simple questions in writing”

The questions concerned who was managing my claim, whether that person understood the history, and whether injury management would finally proceed.

I asked:

“Is Sandy a case manager the way Jessica was?”

I asked whether Sandy had been briefed sufficiently to understand why CCI had become a trigger of compounded trauma for me.

And I asked:

“Is CCI finally going to cooperate to implement the injury management plan agreement?”

These were basic questions about responsibility, continuity and action.

Who was managing the claim? Did that person understand what had happened? Would CCI work with me and my nominated treating doctor to implement the agreed plan?

After years of harm, I needed written answers. I needed something clear enough to rely on.

How much more was I supposed to explain before those questions received a meaningful response?

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12 January 2023: journalists included as witnesses

My TAL update also explained that I had emailed SIRA on 12 January 2023, the previous day, and included two journalists from major newspapers as witnesses.

I wrote:

“It’s the only way to get legitimate action”

That sentence captures how far my trust in the regulatory process had deteriorated.

An injured worker should be able to obtain a meaningful response about claims management without bringing journalists into the correspondence. Yet by January 2023, I felt public scrutiny was necessary to make my requests visible and harder to disregard.

Where was the regulatory intervention that would secure cooperation?

What was the point of repeatedly asking me to engage if basic questions about case management and implementation remained unanswered?

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My doctor was supporting treatment while funding remained unresolved

My doctor’s separate letter of 10 January 2023 referred me for continuing care in the context of the workplace circumstances and workers’ compensation.

It also recorded my advice that payment or reimbursement through workers’ compensation would be forthcoming. I thought SIRA would finally enforce compliance. I honestly did despite my lack of trust. 

That distinction matters. The letter recorded what I had told my doctor. It didn’t establish that CCI had paid, approved reimbursement or resolved treatment funding.

It shows where we were: I was continuing to seek care while still expecting the workers’ compensation arrangements to operate as they should.

My doctor was documenting my circumstances and supporting treatment. I was supplying updates and pursuing cooperation.

We were still waiting for the claims process to meet those efforts with practical action.

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TAL’s support didn’t resolve CCI’s responsibilities

I remain grateful that TAL provided income protection. That support was crucial to my survival.

It didn’t implement my Injury Management Plan. It didn’t make ACU facilitate suitable duties. It didn’t answer the questions I was putting to CCI or secure the coordinated return-to-work response my doctor and I were seeking.

The workers’ compensation responsibilities lay with CCI and ACU. TAL’s support couldn’t be treated as a reason to leave those responsibilities unresolved.

The “handling” of my claim was deliberate and underhanded, and that legal manoeuvring within the system helped undermine the protection I was seeking while regulators failed to intervene. Repeatedly, despite my growing distress and fear.

These documents record the continuing obstacles, my doctor’s observations and the basic cooperation I was still seeking in January 2023.

That’s serious enough to demand answers.

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A human being was still waiting

On 10 January 2023, my doctor recorded that I had always been able to perform suitable duties, that the workplace wasn’t facilitating them, and that return-to-work planning was awaiting CCI.

On 13 January 2023, I told TAL that I was still asking for clarity about case management, a person properly briefed on my circumstances, and cooperation to implement my injury management plan agreement.

I was still cooperating. Still supplying evidence. Still seeking treatment. Still trying to get the statutory scheme to work as intended.

TAL was helping keep me afloat while I did it.

When I describe my experience as a process of human elimination, I mean the cumulative wearing away of a person’s resources, security, health and voice while they wait for institutions to act.

There was a human being behind those forms.

I wanted support to recover in my job. In January 2023, my doctor and I were still asking for the cooperation that could help make that possible.

Source: contemporaneous record of events - Documents 618-619.

I am frightened and writing my story publicly for my safety after exhausting the avenues reasonably available to obtain protection. I want the harm to stop so I can recover safely in my job.