Woman Mistakenly Declined Benefit To Care For Son With Celiac Disease, Diabetes

Lauren
Crimp, Senior Reporter

A
woman was declined a benefit to help her care for her young
son, despite his doctor explaining his life-threatening
condition requires intensive, around the clock
management.

The Ministry of Social Development will
now grant her the Supported Living Payment after being
contacted by RNZ, saying it made a mistake and did not fully
consider the expert advice.

It follows the story of a
Porirua
family who battled through months of back and forth with
Work and Income – and made a call to the media – to get
an unwell man the benefit he was entitled to.

The
woman, who RNZ’s agreed not to name, applied for the
Supported Living Payment – Carer benefit in
February.

Her four-year-old son has celiac disease and
type 1 diabetes, requiring multiple daily insulin injections
for survival. He’s also hypo unaware, meaning he doesn’t
show symptoms when his blood sugar drops, which can be
fatal.

“It is essential that all individuals involved
in [the boy’s] care are appropriately trained and confident
in the management of his diabetes,” a Starship doctor wrote
in a letter accompanying the woman’s benefit
application.

It
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.

“It
was more of sort of a side question of, ‘by the way, what’s
happening?'” she said.

“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.

“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 was frustrated by that.

“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,”
she said.

“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, 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 the
level of care her son required didn’t meet the
“institutional-level care” threshold.

“We apologise to
[the woman] and her son and will work with them to correct
this decision,” he said.

“On review, the information
from the doctor and paediatric expert outline 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.

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