THERE are a total of 200 doctors around hospitals in the country trained to do impairment assessment for victims of motor vehicle accidents and mishaps in workplaces and schools.
This was revealed by the Accident Compensation Commission Fiji (ACCF) chief executive officer Parvez Akbar, who said these were trained doctors who followed the American Medical Association guidelines to carry out the assessments.
Mr Akbar said under the guidelines, there was a waiting period of 10 to 18 months that made turnaround time for injury compensations longer.
“There is a waiting period for that assessment and it takes more time to await compensation for injury compensation but not because of a backlog in the health system,” he said.
“When there is an injury or an employment accident, doctors have to carry out the assessment to determine how much a worker’s body has been incapacitated or how much a person’s body has been affected by their injury.
“This is why the commission had paid out more death compensations when compared with injuries.
“Hence, of the 25 cases of death and injury compensations, we have approved and paid three injury cases and 22 death cases.”
Mr Akbar said in cases of death compensations, individuals were already dead and did not need to undergo any other assessment.
He also clarified during a question and answer session that the commission paid the highest compensation for those totally incapacitated at $150,000 to cover costs of caring for victims, while death and other types of employment, school, road accident cases were paid $75,000.
“However, $150,000 is only paid to those totally incapacitated, compensation will depend on the medical assessment reports,” he said.
“Those that are not fully incapacitated will only receive a portion of the total amount.”
