“Can front line emergency workers sue for trauma compo for the horrors they see?”

I would have hoped not. If they can, anyone who tries it on should be advised to look for a different job. But why ask the question when a judge has already found that a driver “owed a duty of care not to cause psychiatric injury to Senior Constable David Caffrey, who was called to attend an accident caused by the intoxicated motorist's negligent driving”.

On this occasion, I am 100% with the insurer who rightly claimed that the police officer should be able to deal with such things.

But, this time wasting, 'personal injury’ lawyer eventually gets around to telling us that is OK in certain circumstances, even though he caught our attention by asking the question!

It has been acceptable for lawyers to advertise their services for some time now, and Bennett & Philp lawyers have just had a freebie.

Something about if you can`t take the heat get out of the kitchen.......

No! It's what you sign up for and part of the job description. Suggest all would be applicants do a couple of seasons in an abattoir to get used to blood, guts, the smell that goes with it along with the very obvious terror of sentient beings, death and dying.

A period of military service and the horror that all too often is an integral part of it! Acclimatise some of the Nurse Nightengales among us to some very harsh realities. If they came from the bush? Or exposed to the foregoing?

This is not a job for the weak-kneed or lily-livered. None of the folk before you, that did these thankless jobs, were ever compensated for the horrors they were exposed to!

None!

As the saying goes, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen! Alan B.

the rise of litigation as a result of training or brainwashing more and more lawyers is poison for our community. While I have great admiration for emergency workers it is what they sign up for. The Government should provide all the support they need. It is sickening to see ads on television by sleazy law firms trying to drum up business to anyone that has had an accident. Less and less people earning an honest living and more and more money for lawyers to turn people into victims. No real winners.

runner

I agree with your post.

So l refer to any application of a person applying to the position Police Officer.

They file their application, if accepted they go to Goulburn Academy for training (if that's the relevant academy of training in 2019).

They then pass and are allocated for service in a relative Police Station.

So what happens, they are introduced into that Police Station's policies.

So therefore, anything they learned at the Police Academy - depending on the Officer in Charge of said station - goes with his/their policies.

So I ask a simple question, if our "new" Officers to Policing - fresh from the Academy, aren't given any support when horrendous events come into their pervue, and don't believe they are able to seek professional assistance - albeit said person believes they will be seen by their co-workers/peers as being "soft" - I say to those in charge …..so what has changed since the 1980's, that you haven't addressed this issue to our fellow Police Officers, at ALL levels in the Department of Policing.

Time to change is up - it is "imperative" our Offices on the front line be provided all assistance with their care and well-being when attending "horrendous" cases.

Trent Johnson's greed & is giving me the horrors, I demand compensation !

Runner

"Time to change is up - it is "imperative" our Offices on the front line be provided all assistance with their care and well-being when attending "horrendous" cases".

Sorry for typo error in above "Offices" should have been "officers".

However, I do wish to include our Ambulance Officers, and any other Government Agency's involvement in response to an "alert of harm or distress".

We all expect "this is their job" - yes it is, however their instances whereby said Officer will be called to a "baby death".

Some Officers I have spoken to have left the Police Department due to attending a "baby's death".

However, we as a society, don't take into consideration the personal toll on our serving members - when attending these cases.

We just assume - oh - it's their job - get over it.

Those who hold these opinions - should get in touch with their relative community Police Officer/s and just "talk"....you will be surprised at how much they "hold in", and how much - over in time - they will reveal to you.

They all have empathy - just like you and I. Just because they do a job with a "badge" doesn't mean - they don't have any empathy.

And that's where the problem lies - some are "unable" to voice their concerns to "those in charge" due to they being perceived as "weak".

So what has changed in Policing ethos - obviously nothing.

Hi Saints

You seem to talk from personal experience. I actually trained as a Prison Officer in the early 1980's at Goulburn. I can't disagree with anything you say. I do know however think often things turn to poison when lawyers get involved. I feel somewhat sickened when I see mobs like Blackburn and Slater and Gordon calling for class actions. They usually sit in officers with water views dreaming up how to scam. Look at the money they make from the taxpayers supporting illegal immigrants, I have a little personal experience with these leeches. I would much prefer Government did their job and looked after our emergency workers. I know they have a high rate of suicide with what they put up with.

A National Service can get young people ready for such jobs ! All those blood sports they play all day long in their living rooms are more than adequate exposure.

The logical answer is no. Get ambulance chasing lawyers involved, logic then goes out the door.

A problem seems to be that many people choosing to work in the field of rescue or policing do not understand what they are letting themselves in for.

A similar argument seeking CTP compensation could be made for doctors who carry out emergency surgery - should they be liable to be financially compensated by a stabbing victim's insurers?

A partial way to reduce the possibility of claims by professional rescuers may lie in better education about the scope of the job before the individual makes the decision to follow that career path.

Example of what some said, no training.

Carer who was filmed hitting elderly patient with shoe wins appeal

A Sydney aged care worker, who has won his sentence appeal for hitting an elderly man with a shoe, had no training on how to care for dementia patients.

Prakash Paudyal had been single-handedly caring for 16 patients and while his actions “cannot be excused”, both he and the victim were “victims of the system”, his lawyer told the District Court on Thursday.

The 36-year-old was jailed in January for eight months, with a non-parole period of four months.

Paudyal had pleaded guilty to assaulting an 82-year-old man between August 26 and September 8 in 2018, while he was working at the Bupa Seaforth facility in the city’s northern beaches.

Judge Helen Symes allowed his appeal and instead imposed an eight-month intensive correction order which includes community service.

Describing the circumstances of the two men as “equally tragic,” she said while not blaming the facility, she wondered why it only required one person to care for the victim.

“This was definitely a two person job at least,” she said, after she watched footage caught on a hidden camera in the victim’s room.

Paudyal’s barrister Malcolm Ramage QC said his client was “never given any training in how to handle dementia patients, in particular those who have aspects of violence or irrational reactions.”

Paudyal, who has Crohn’s disease, expressed his remorse in a letter to the victim’s daughter Ayda Celine, although she would not read it, the barrister said.

Ms Celine had installed the secret camera after becoming concerned about bruises on her father’s body.

Mr Ramage said Paudyal had been working two jobs at the time.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/carer-filmed-hitting-elderly-patient-shoe-wins-appeal-194423717.html

My opinion is, that emergency workers, police officers and soldiers should not be able sue anybody for PTSD caused by the necessities of doing their jobs. Surely, the best way to weed out those people who's personalities are not suitable for such work is to explain to recruits what the grim realities of their job are, before they are allowed to gain employment? Perhaps some work experience beforehand should be mandatory to allow potential recruits time to understand if they have what it takes to do a job where dealing with serious injuries and death, that can be commonplace, everyday events in these occupations.

The current recruiting posters for the Australian Defence Forces are an example of how not to do it.

Defence force posters typically show a beautiful young woman in cammies looking oh, so happy in her job as a soldier. This happy picture is reinforced by slogans such as "Be all you can be." Or, "I never stop learning in the Army." It is as if being an officially sanctioned killer is simply a logical career move for anyone seeking a job that offers personnel advancement. WW1 ANZACS had no such illusions of what they were. They called themselves "two bob a day murderers."

The reality is, soldiers kill people and they take casualties doing it. Psychologists have discovered that only around 12% of western men today can kill another human being without displaying self destructive levels of guilt. An since men are a lot more violent than women anyway, it is logical to assume that the proportion of women who can kill and maim, and not feel suicidally guilty, is a lot less.

Therefore, the job of recruiting for soldiers in a professional armed force should focus upon that crucial 12% of males who can do the job. Society needs them and they should be paid well. Not just recruit anybody, and when the 88% of men who can not do this job without breaking down with PTSD, allow ambulance chasing lawyers to sue the state.

The reality is, soldiers kill people and they take casualties doing it.
LEGO,
You failed to complete your sentence by "which is a very unfortunate side effect to protecting your people". As alway there are ungrateful Leftists who denounce those who do the dirty work for them ! Quite shameful really !