This is the text of a letter I wrote in the middle of 2017, addressed to
Carmel Sepuloni, then the Labour spokesperson for social development,
now the Minister for Social Development in the Labour-led government.
I’m pleased to note that once of my suggestions has already been
implemented. Cancelling a benefit now requires a sign-off from a senior
member of staff, instead of being an automated process requiring the
correct intervention from staff, at just the right time, to prevent
cancellation. I look forward to seeing the social welfare system
radically reorganized so that it can fulfill its core purpose, as I
proposed in the final paragraph of this letter.
Tēnā koe
I want to share with you an experience that illustrates just how poorly
Work and Income serves our most vulnerable people. You are welcome to
share this story in your work to improve the social welfare of all
kiwis, but please do not share any personally identifying
details such as my name and contact information.
First a little background. I have lived on one kind of social welfare
benefit or another for most of my life since leaving home. This is
because I live with the mental health challenges of chronic depression
and anxiety, which make it impossible for me to fulfill the demands of
full time paid work. Instead, I work in informal, unpaid roles in
community groups and public benefit organizations, allowing me to
increase and reduce my workload in response to the state of my mental
health. Although being a volunteer doesn’t improve my standard of living
as measured in dollars, it gives me great satisfaction to be able to
give back to the community in whatever ways I can.
Although I have been in counseling on and off since my teenage years,
and had some success using practices such as tai chi and meditation to
mitigate my symptoms, I have avoided medication. This is mostly due to
bad experiences with being prescribed Ritalin for Attention Deficit
Disorder during my high school years, which helped in some ways in the
short-term, but ultimately seemed to make my mood disorders worse. By
carefully managing my workload and accompanying stress levels, I have
also avoided the need to be committed for hospital-based mental health
care. By managing my condition without the use of drugs or hospital
care, it’s likely I have saved the public health system many times the
amount of money that has been spent paying my benefit over the years.
Although I have also spent time on a range of benefits, including a
couple of years on a student allowance, the income support I have
probably spent the most time receiving is the unemployment benefit. I
refuse to use the current propaganda phrase “Jobseekers Allowance”,
which implies that this is something I’m being generously allowed if I’m
looking for paid work, rather than an implementation of my right as a
citizen to be cared for by the public good, if I’m not being paid
through wages or salary.
You may ask why I haven’t been on the sickness benefit. Good question.
The answer is, of course, that the sickness benefit no longer exists,
having become a special variant of the “Jobseekers Allowance” (more on
this below). I did go onto on the sickness benefit at one point, in the
late 1990s. After a couple of months, the Income Support Service (as it
was called at the time) insisted I see one of their “Designated
Doctors”, doctors who seemed to be selected specifically for their
unwillingness to take patients seriously, or the assessments of our GPs
and specialists. Suffice to say, I was soon back on the unemployment
benefit.
This was such a disruptive and distressing experience that I never
bothered again for years afterwards. Arguably, considering the chronic,
unpredictable, and periodically debilitating nature of my condition, I
should be receiving the Supported Living Payment (formerly the Invalids
Benefit). However, after my experience of being patronized by the
Designated Doctor, and my mental health challenges trivialized, I
couldn’t face the maze of paperwork and the exhaustion of jumping
through bureaucratic hoops that would be required, only to
risk being rejected again. Until recently, I just put up with the
indignity of being called in every few months to be asked why I hadn’t
got a paid job yet, and thought myself lucky not to be one of the
unfortunates I’ve seen sleeping in doorways and begging outside shops.
This winter I had a breakdown, a particularly severe attack of
depression that left me mostly bedridden and suicidal for at least a
couple of months, although I’m still in recovery and it’s hard to
remember the exact details. At my last meeting with my W&I case manager
I decided to tell her about this. She was surprisingly sympathetic, and
offered me a DHB voucher for a free GP appointment, which would
otherwise cost around $40 even with a Community Services Card. $40 is
nearly a quarter of the benefit amount I get to live on
each week.
The GP, who I had not actually met before due to this cost barrier, was
also really helpful and agreed to give me the medical certificate I
needed to lift my W&I work obligations for a period of time. Because of
W&I rules, the doctor was only able to give me a one month medical
certificate, despite the nature of my condition. But he told me I could
pick up a second certificate, lasting three months, without needing
another appointment, which he acknowledged would be “too expensive”.
Instead of his receptionist being able to post, fax, or email the
certificate to W&I, I had to take it to the W&I office personally. I
also had to pick up the second certificate from the surgery and take it
to W&I. Although this may seem trivial, for a person suffering
unpredictable bouts of depression and anxiety, the idea of having to
leave the house and take a piece of paper from one office to another, at
just the right time, or risk losing my income, is existentially
terrifying. With the new security systems, visiting W&I feels like
visiting someone in prison, and is a highly stressful environment for a
person vulnerable to anxiety.
Fortunately, by this stage my condition had improved somewhat. My first
medical certificate expired on a Monday, and I was able to get the
second one to the W&I office on the preceding Friday. I was greatly
relieved.
Until I checked my bank account today, to find that I had not received
my benefit this week. I logged into My.MSD and it told me that my
benefit had “expired”, but gave no further information. I had to call
W&I, and wait on hold for almost an hour. When I finally got through,
the call centre worker checked my file and did… something… and told
me that my benefit should come through sometime tomorrow. I had done
everything I was supposed to do, but for some reason she couldn’t really
explain, W&I had just failed to pay me, and cancelled my benefit.
Again, I was greatly relieved that my condition has improved to the
point where I am able to do things like log into internet banking and
My.MSD, and make phone calls to public agencies. Had this happened a few
months ago, I would not have been able to do any of these things, and
would have faced tremendous stress when I started getting calls from my
landlords about the rent not going through.
This is one reason why I have usually chosen to stay on the unemployment
benefit. For those of us struggling to maintain mental health, applying
for the sickness benefit (or “Jobseekers Allowance” without work
obligations) puts us on a treadmill of extra paperwork, visits to the
doctor we can barely afford, and extra visits to the W&I office. Not
only are we not always well enough to keep up with these obligations,
which means our ability to pay our bills is constantly in question, but
even when we do there’s no guarantee we’ll receive the benefit we are
entitled to in a predictable, secure fashion. The stress and uncertainty
this creates can be actively detrimental to our recovery.
The social welfare systems need to be totally reformed to ensure income
security for people with mental health challenges. But this is not all.
Consider the research that shows people who have experienced extended
periods of anxiety, powerlessness, and despair, become more
vulnerable to chronic mental health problems – particularly mood
disorders like depression. To prevent avoidable harm to people’s
longterm mental health, the social welfare system needs to treat
everyone who spends time on benefits with dignity, and ensure their
income security. At present, this is far from the reality.
To be on a benefit is to be patronized, interrogated, suspected,
under-appreciated, and pushed around. In our day to day lives we may be
caring parents and family members, community development workers, social
and environmental activists, life coaches and spiritual advisers,
students and co-tutors, artists and social commentators, citizen
journalists, citizen scientists, programmers or supporters in open
source software communities, gardeners and supporters in
community gardens, fundraisers for charity, and so much more. The moment
we set foot in the W&I office we are failures, losers, naughty children,
whose inability to get paid for our work renders it valueless.
To get onto a benefit requires navigating a labyrinth of multi-pages
forms, a multitude of proof-of-this and proof-of-that documents, and
weeks of stand down periods in which we are expected to survive with no
income. For the unemployment benefit, there is also the
patronizing, unhelpful “Work4U” seminar that we might have to sit
through multiple times. Worst of all, it requires proof of address. It’s
never been easy to get accepted into a home with no proof of income with
which to pay the rent, and in the current housing crisis, it’s even more
difficult. For homeless kiwis this means the first two rungs of the
ladder out of abject poverty are both inaccessible unless you already
have the other. A classic Catch-22 situation.
Having managed to get onto the benefit, one finds oneself playing a
bizarre snakes and ladders game, where a bad roll of the dice can land
you right back at square one. People’s income security can be
arbitrarily and automatically removed by computer systems, with no
human decision-making involved, as happened to me today. W&I staff
cancel people’s benefits on a whim, without any obligation to consider
their circumstances or what will happen to them when they can’t pay
their bills. Having one’s benefit cancelled is a default condition that
people on benefits must constantly be alert for, and strive to
avoid.
All this must change.
Debts to W&I due to overpayment can now be easily and automatically
recovered from benefits and wages. W&I staff should be empowered to
grant benefits first, and ask questions later. The initial paperwork
should consist of no more than one page of *essential* information, such
as contact details and bank account, and the staff should offer to fill
it out if the person seeking the benefit seems the least confused by it.
Benefits should be automatically granted from the day the person first
visits the office, or calls the call centre, and backdated for any
period of time they’ve been without income, so they can pay down any
resulting debt. Staff should be empowered to hand out guarantees-to-pay
for two weeks rent and payment cards for food on the spot. Systems for
managing debts due to overpayment and debts due to fraud should be kept
totally separate, and the statistics for the two should never be treated
as one figure and used to smear beneficiaries as routine fraudsters.
No automated computer system should have the power to stop someone’s
benefit. This should only happen with explicit instructions from a human
operator, who has examined the full situation and made a considered
decision. Anyone who knows how prone complex computer
systems are to bugs, and misuse by under-trained operators, knows that
software should never be allowed to make decisions that affect whether
people can afford to pay their rent or buy food. This is a minimum
condition for ensuring income security for people on benefits.
I would go further and say that cancelling someone’s benefit should
require a similarly rigorous due process to that currently required to
get onto a benefit. A person should never wake up and find their benefit
has been cancelled due to administrative oversight. This
process should require a number of steps, with the person kept informed
about every step of the process, so they can correct a mistake if
required before it causes the unjustified cancellation of their benefit.
I’d also like to make one more point about benefit levels. In May this
year, Steven Joyce admitted that a student allowance is not enough to
live on, and that students are expected so supplement their allowance
with part-time paid work. People on other benefits face the same costs
as students, and receive the same rates of payment each week, including
people on sickness and supported living benefits. So, Steven Joyce is
admitting that unemployed people unable to find part-time work and
people living with chronic illnesses are being paid less than
they need to live on.
Everything I’ve described here is symptomatic of a benefit system that
is fundamentally failing in its core purpose; guaranteeing the social
welfare of our people when markets fail them. It’s long past time that
something was done about this.
We have agreed to keep the writer of this post anonymous to prevent WINZ from punishing them.
Great post.
This needs to be sent to the government who were voted for by a great many people who were hoping these injustices would be a thing of the past. Given their current behavior I am seriously considering not voting at the next election. Don’t expect any extra money to introduce these changes as business has just been assured they wont break their nonsensical fiscal stability pact.
I have considerable empathy for/with you. I’ve been through “the mill” of WINZ, but once I became a superannuitant, things have not been as bad. Bad enough though! I live from Tuesday to Tuesday fortnight. I had to stop working as a registered nurse when I was 45, due to 2 incurable autoimmune diseases caused by mercury in vaccinations I’d had to have when a young student nurse. My health was “shot” by age 25 & thereafter I was frequently ill, used up my sickleave & then had no money coming in when I kept being ill.
I have been accused of being a malingerer by a WINZ “case manager”, told for years that I was receiving all that I was “entitled” to. More recently, a social worker has told me that she is sure that I haven’t been receiving “all that I was entitled to” for a long time. Like you, to address all that I have to for WINZ purposes is energy-draining, distressing & time-consuming.
Somewhat similarly to you, I’ve long been a depressive & have had times of being quite seriously suicidal. Being a well-educated/informed Reg. Nurse, I’ve always been blessed to have considerable insight. I’ve also known what I needed to do to mitigate my challenges. Due to my knowledge I avoided the usual drugs for depression – indeed, knowing that all pharma drugs are toxic, poisonous chemicals, I avoid ALL DRUGS. A substantial amount of my “super” is spent on nutrients – the only substances that will help one’s body/mind to achieve a more healthy balance – even heal.
The vitamins most helpful for mental/emotional health are the B vitamins: What I buy/take are Blackmores MEGA B – these have 50mgs of all the ones that we need milligrams of & 50mcg of all the ones we need micrograms of. I look out for “specials” of these at Countdown. I sometimes find them on “special” at Health Post (online). I am fortunate to have 2 wonderful friends who help me by sending me gifts of B vitamins & also Magnesium from time to time.
We all need much more magnesium than what any doctor thinks. Keep in mind that most doctors know only what they’ve been taught at medical school. If you can cope with reading (easy to read book) find it at your local library: The Magnesium Miracle by Dr Carolyn Dean. Ask a librarian to help you – that’s their job!
If you have access to a computer, (go to library) type into Google:
http://www.doctoryourself.com/hoffer_niacin.html Read about Niacin – the B vitamin that Bill Wilson – the creator of Alcoholics Anonymous – used to heal himself of depression. Don’t take any B vitamin in isolation from all the others: Niacin must be taken WITH the rest; that why I take Blackmores MEGA B. Don’t bother with “Executive B”- that’s a waste of money; the amounts of B vitamins are too small.
A cheap way to get more magnesium into your body is by taking Epsom Salts – can be bought at the supermarket or a Bulk Bin shop – again ask a staff member to help you find it. You can put a cup of Epsom Salts into a large bowl of comfortably hot water that at least one foot will fit into (a larger bowl is better for both feet together. Soak your feet for at least 20 minutes – the magnesium will enter your body through the soles of your feet.
Magnesium is THE DE-STRESS mineral – I swallow about 3000mg every day in smaller doses throughout the day. It is very safe to do what I do. I buy Healtheries magnesium from Pak ‘n Save when it’s on “special”. Most of my money is spent on vitamins & minerals – once mortgage, rates, insurance & Internet/phone is paid. Don’t buy junk foods: I shop around the outer walls of the supermarket (or buy veges at a Saturday morning market). Drink more water – not tea/coffee & etc. Water will help keep your body hydrated & you will begin to feel more well (including emotionally).
Go brisk walking every day if possible. As a psychiatric nurse, I made my patients go brisk walking around Carrington Hospital’s farm every morning after breakfast. (I went with them & they had to keep up with me.) Brisk walking releases endorphins in your body. Endorphins give us a natural & healthy “high”. I insisted my patients go to the Rec Hall twice weekly – again because active exercise was good for them. (I was the Charge Nurse of the ward so what I said, all the other nurses had to obey.)
More than enough already. I hope you find some of this of help/use. I still do what I’ve advised you about because I’ve lived with depression since my late 20s. I also try to live with an attitude of gratitude & say “thank you” to the Universe as often as I can. It’s not easy, and I make myself not stay in bed when I just want to bury my head under the bedding most mornings.
Be well, Go well, Stay well.
straight from the horses mouth, well done you and excellent advise for the rest of us
Thank you for this clearly presented situation. It explains a lot about what is happening in our society right now. What an awful convoluted mess the social welfare system has become!
Your comments apply to the ACC system as well – especially when they have to deal with less obvious accident cases such as accidental chemical poisoning and the victims present with many of the mental issues you have been suffering as well as physical ones which a GP can easily mis- diagnosed as something else and not relate the two.. When this happens with the first GP the accident victims sees after the accident then the accident is not recorded for ACC purposes. This then is the excuse ACC later uses to not consider an ACC application.
If the victim persists they too are sent through a series of
“Designated Doctors”, doctors who seemed to be selected specifically for their
unwillingness to take patients seriously”
Good luck and thank you again for sharing your situation.
This is another issue relating to WINZ and MEDICINES.
Here is what caused me to start this group underfunding of medicines by pharmac group page .
I have been paying for an young adults type 1 diabetes and downstream health issues medications for the last 8 and a half years and have experienced our dysfunctional health and welfare system and the disconnect that exists between the two.
Read on below for just some of them that has caused this young mans health to deteriorate due to this dysfunction.
1
The fact there are so many medicines unfunded.
As at June 30 2018 there are around 108 medicines and medical devices unfunded on the waiting list for 120 different illnesses applying to at least 235,000 people.
These have been approved for funding but are still waiting for the funding to be applied.
Some of them have been waiting for almost 14 years.
These are listed in a seperate post on the group page .
These do not include medicines that still have to be accessed by the PTAC Committee.
Is yours on that list or has it not even made it to the list or has it been superceeded and no longer funded.
So you suddenly have to pay full price for a previously funded medicine, because your body doesn’t tolerate the new subsidised medicine.
2
The Physical deterioration, Emotional and Mental costs of battling to get the money, on yourself, your family and your friends, when you have to battle to convince them, you are not bullshitting, over the costs to buy those unfunded drugs when you ;
A
Do not have a job or your job does not pay enough, or social welfare benefits do not pay enough to purchase your medicines or medical requirements. Or you do not have access to a Work and Income benefit due to various rules prohibiting access to one. Remember under 25 yr olds benefits are $50 a week less than an over 25’s benefit.
B
Do not have family support due to them being low income or a beneficiary or financially struggling themselves.
3
A
When unemployed or have a long term illness, social welfare is restricted in how much they can pay, i.e the disability allowance is a maximum of $62.00 ( Which has remained the same since being introduced back in 1993 and does not meet today’s health needs) you may get a Temporary additional support payment if you are lucky, which can be no more than 30% of the base rate of your benefit ($215.00 approximately, if you are under 25 you get $50.00 a week less) , but if your meds costs are $350 to $600 plus a week you can forget about it.
This information was supplied by winz advocates answering questions on winz advocacy pages.
B
The psychological abuse handed out by winz case managers, to young people, with health issues is immense.
When winz doctors overrule their doctor, then forced to job hunt when they are mentally and physically not ready.
C
The refusal to grant a supported living benefit to anyone unless you cannot work for 2 years or more ( used to be 3 to 6 months from memory) is a serious human rights abuse.
Even cancer patients are refused it and still made to job search.
See the World Health un charter post re article 25.
4
If you are in a relationship, then the relationship rule cuts your benefit in half, if your partner earns $800 or more a week before tax, you lose your benefit entirely .
A
If you have a job and only get seasonal work, it again affects your ability to afford medicines, if it is minimum wage and minimum hours and with no benefit top up your situation is even worse.
B
If you do have a job and lose it under the 90 day rule, that can affect whether you get a stand down or not ( the stand down can be up to 13 weeks).
All these things which are only a few of the reasons make it imperative that all meds be funded.
I was talking to a pharmacist at a countdown chemist recently, about my young friends mental state and she told me it is not uncommon, for young people like him to consider suicide as an option, due to all the above pressures.
When his doctors and specialist have tried for 6 plus years, to get various drugs he has been on funded, then been refused. Is it any wonder New Zealand has the highest youth suicide rate in the world, when this is the healthcare and welfare care they get.
When you have people paying $450.00 a week for just one cancer medication for over a year. Or a lady in this group self funding at $1,000 every 3 months for 8 plus years and having to bring medication into NZ from a buyers group in Australia because her medication is too expensive in NZ.
Something is seriously amiss with our medication funding.
When there are 17 Cancer medicines, at least 7 diabetic medicines and multiple Alzheimer’s medications and the like, adding up to at least 108 medicines for up to 120 illnesses, waiting for funding as new medications or to widen access to it, to other people, you seriously have to ask yourself what is wrong with our health and welfare system. When Pharmac stop funding one medication, to fund a generic medication that may not suit your body, you are left to fund that drug yourself , this is wrong and should not happen.
DR CLARK FUND ALL THE MEDICINES UNTIL SUCH TIME AS A PERSON NO LONGER NEEDS THEM.
CARMEL SEPILONI also fund people who have long term illnesses so they can live a decent life and not live in damn daily misery.
REMOVE THE RELATIONSHIP RULE NOW SO EVERYONE GETS TREATED AS AN INDIVIDUAL and trust the clients doctors and get RID OF THESE DESIGNATED DOCTOR CRAP NOW.
.
I sent a copy of this to Dr Clark and Carmel Sepiloni by email last night.
Will post the responses here.
I received a reply From Hon Dr David Clark’s secretary who thanked me for taking the time to write and said all my comments had been noted. As yet I have had no response whatsoever from Hon Carmel Sepiloni’s office .
The Winz terror never leaves: it just goes dormant.
One glimpse of that horrible little logo…
If dealing with them gets too bad for you, see if you can designate someone who hasn’t been through the grinder to act as your agent. You are allowed to do that and the paperwork isn’t too horrendous.
That puts vital space between you and WINZ. You can think more clearly. Your agent can help you tone down the terror. If you are having a flare of depression then they can handle the paperwork when you can’t.
Make it someone who is ALWAYS on your side. Who will NEVER patronise you behind your back while dealing with WINZ.
Be safe.
If you have a branch of beneficiaries advocacy in your area they may be able to help.
Commiserations to all those other people experiencing the W&I system, and like you, we do try and advocate for ourselves to receive a few more $ a week because the low level of welfare benefits here is unliveable. As many have experienced getting a little more is hard work, with forms, GP, quotes, appointments, and they may grant you a couple more $’s or start a review process. OMG those go on, and must cost a fortune with all their arranging and photocopying and work time from those workers, all to just demean you and give u another couple of $’s or not. Meanwhile, they are all living on reasonable wages, avoiding doing much when they can, spouting the same stuff daily, so their fun becomes hassling the beneficiaries. I sometimes wonder if AI would be better, we just ring up or input requests and receive them, no time wasted over having to prove we ‘need’ it, our low incomes are proof enough to the computer that we do. Kia kaha and things for the info about Magnesium, B vitamins, and also Vit C and HTP5 are things I would add to that nutrient mix for anyone suffering stress and mood swings, which are all a natural reaction to unemployment and a broken system.
> “I sometimes wonder if AI would be better”
No, it really wouldn’t. Human staff being forced by policy and bullying from their superiors to make them behave like AI is part of the problem. As the writer of this blog points out, it was the WINZ computer system that was cancelling a lot of people’s benefits when they were fully entitled to keep receiving them, and it’s a real step forward that Carmel has changed that so cancelling someone’s benefit needs human intervention, with oversight by senior staff. I hope she’s also given WINZ management entirely new KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), based on how successfully they help those in need, rather than how effectively they stay under arbitrary budget caps.
You could be any number of people that I know.
Its time disabled were prioritised in our welfare system instead of the continuous shunting and shunning that we currently have.
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