Monday Muses ~being prepared makes sense.

Well that's one week down for the year. It is always interesting to shift things around when a call for assistance comes in. A psychologist called as he was very concerned about the emotional well-being for one of his clients who needed attend an IME appointment. His client has 2 accepted workers compensation claims, one being for the physical injury the other for sustained workplace bullying. The IME appointment was for the physical injury, and for the first time *Emily would be without a family member to attend with her. "Can you help, can you drop everything and go?" was the question, I said yes, I asked the psychologist to have *Emily fill in the IME check list and to meet with me 2 hours before the appointment time so we could chat and I could get up to speed with all I would need to know. I also needed to explain that as a support person I wouldn't be able to speak for her other than to say that we needed a few minutes break if she had a panic attack. All I would be able to do is assist her with her top should she need it. I would not take notes or record any of the appointment.

The appointment was set for 90 minutes due to the amount of actual physical injury that needed to be assessed.

When I met with *Emily I asked her for all the paperwork she was to give to the IME, I sorted through it all, put it into chronological dates with the Craig's Table IME checklist on top.

The IME "was no too impressed" that I was attending as the support person, my focus though had to remain on the reason why I was in place. I laid the paperwork out and calmed *Emily down.

*Emily remained calm throughout, she answered questions and pointed to the information that was provided on the checklist written in her own handwriting so it could not be questioned. The appointment was over in just on an hour. When we left the first place we went to was an ice cream parlour as that was the treat that *Emily had requested. Little did she know that I rarely eat ice cream, however it was a sacrifice I was willing to make just to keep everything on track.

The surprise part in all of this is that the IME tracked me down to say thank you, he admitted when he saw me in the waiting area he thought I would cause "issues", instead he was able to just do the examinations required and get the answers to the questions he needed without any form of stress. Plus he was also grateful for the information that was on the checklist that he was able to refer to.

IME's are part and parcel of the current iteration of the workers compensation process, these professionals have a job to do. It is not always pleasant for them and it is not always pleasant for members of the injured worker community.The best way forward is to be as prepared as possible, have documents in order, fill in the checklist and work through all of it.

For *Emily the most stressful part was to have the physical examination done as she had tolerated the physical pain from torn and over-stretched muscles longer than she should have due to the amount of workplace bullying that she was also going through.Sadly she truly believed that despite the physical evidence to the contrary she would not be believed. [The sadder thing is that physical injury is a known injury for the industry she worked in]

At the end of it. my role was very small, I ate half of my years ice-cream intake.

As you can see I am making progress on writing the "roadmap" that I spoke about. It is interesting to know just how much I already have in place or already worked on. This lot of information came from the Injured Worker Focus Group.

For now it is time to make a cup of tea then water the garden as it has been another hot day here. Then have dinner. Tomorrow I will continue to work on the roadmap.

24th Annual National Workers’ Compensation Summit 6th & 7th March 2023  Intelligent Rebellion conversation 10th March 2023 International Day of Mourning 28th April  Safety and Health at Work Congress

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Yours in service

Rosemary