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S.65 Guidelines - Category 1 and 2 Psychological or Psychiatric Disorder (6 December 2001)
GUIDELINES PURSUANT TO SECTION 65 OF THE VICTIMS COMPENSATION ACT 1996.
The 1998 amendments to the Victims Compensation Act provide for the replacement of shock with a new category of compensable injury:
Category 1 chronic psychological or psychiatric disorder that is moderately disabling;
Category 2 chronic psychological or psychiatric disorder that is severely disabling.
In making those changes it seems clear that the Legislature intended that it be made more difficult for applicants to succeed in claims for psychological/psychiatric injury (see speeches in Hansard).
The use of the word “chronic” does not equate with that term as used in DSM IV. There it is used as a “specifier” to indicate the duration of some psychiatric disorders but the term is certainly not applicable to very many of the disorders in DSM IV.
During the second reading debate the Hon. R. D. Dyer said “The new injury category will require diagnosis of a long term psychological injury which results in severe impairment of the person’s ability to function in their usual day to day activities”
Various dictionaries define “chronic” as “long duration”; “continuing for a long time”; “lasting a long time”.
The use of the word “chronic” in the Table of compensable injuries is obviously not used in the same sense as used in DSM IV but has its ordinary meaning of continuing for a long time, long duration.
The disorder must be “disabling”.
The Attorney General said in the House about this compensable injury that applicants would be eligible to claim compensation “for any ongoing psychological injury that has a continuing detrimental impact on the victims’ ability to undertake their usual day to day activities”. The Hon R. D. Dyer had used the expression “severe impairment of the person’s ability to function in their usual day to day activities”.
The dictionaries define disabling as “rendering unable or incapable” or “deprived of an ability (physical or mental)” or a “state of incapacity”.
To paraphrase then, the injury must be a long duration disorder which has rendered an applicant incapable of functioning in his/her usual day to day activities to either a moderate or severe degree. What is moderately or severely disabling will be a matter for the assessor to determine based on the material provided.
Chairperson
6 December 2001 (as amended).
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