01 September 2021
Ross Francis
[FYI request #16290 email]
Tēnā koe Ross
Your Official Information Act request, reference: GOV-013192
Thank you for your email of 4 August 2021, asking for the following information under the Official
Information Act 1982 (the Act):
As at 21 June 2021, ACC had received 127 claims relating to the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine and
had accepted 22 claims for injury or harm.
1. Regarding each of the 22 accepted claims, what has been the harm or injury likely caused by
the Covid-19 vaccine, and what remedy - financial or otherwise - has been provided to each
claimant?
2. Among the 91 undecided claims, what have been the three most severe injuries possibly
caused by the vaccine?
3. Among the 127 claimants, how many (if any) said that fol owing vaccination they had
experienced or suffered from facial paralysis, Bel 's Palsy, or related symptoms?
4. Since rol -out of the Covid-19 vaccine began until the present day, how many people have
made a claim to ACC for injury or harm relating to side-effects from the vaccine?
Background information about treatment injury data
As you are aware, ACC has provided cover for treatment injuries since 1 July 2005. The treatment injury
provisions replaced the medical misadventure provisions of the Accident Compensation Act 2001, to
bring it more in line with the no-fault nature of the scheme.
A treatment injury is a personal injury caused as a result of seeking or receiving medical treatment from
a registered health professional. In order to fulfil the criteria for cover, the person must have suffered a
personal injury and there must be a clear causal link between the treatment and the injury, and the
injury must not be a necessary part or ordinary consequence of the treatment.
When considering treatment injury data, it is important to note that the number of claims lodged with
ACC cannot be taken as an accurate indication of the occurrence of injury during treatment or the
quality of care. This is because, among other reasons, not al occurrences of injury during treatment are
lodged with ACC.
Context
Treatment injury (TI) data is available from 1 July 2005, when treatment injury provisions came into law.
Further information about treatment injury can be found at the fol owing links:
• https://www.acc.co.nz/for-providers/treatment-safety/ and
• https://www.acc.co.nz/assets/provider/ACC7971-Supporting-Treatment-Safety-2021.pdf
(overview of treatment injury in public and private surgical hospitals and general practice
settings).
GOV-013192
Claim lodgement rates are dependent on several factors. They can be influenced by:
•
population demography i.e. the characteristics of the resident population, visitors and
referred patients
•
health status of the population treated
•
what level of facility the organisation provides i.e. tertiary versus secondary
•
familiarity of health providers or clients in recognising and/or lodging treatment injury
claims.
Notes about the data provided
The fol owing points should be considered when interpreting the data provided:
• The data has been extracted for COVID-19 vaccine-related TI claims for which a cover decision
had been made, as at 21 June 2021. The year the cover decision made may differ from the year
in which the claim was lodged/and or the injury occurred.
• The data was extracted on 12 August 2021 and may differ if extracted again at a later date.
Costs
There are three broad categories of costs (entitlements) a claim could receive:
•
Compensation (weekly compensation for lost earnings, lump sums and death benefits)
•
Treatment (initial hospital treatment and on-going primary and secondary treatment)
•
Rehabilitation support (physical rehabilitation and various forms of personal support).
The biggest single factor in determining the long-term costs of some injuries is the amount of personal
support needed by the client. Some treatment injury types may be minor and require little or no
ongoing support from ACC.
Payments
ACC pays for the provision of services for injured persons through DHBs via two mechanisms:
a) Public Health Acute Services (PHAS) payments. Acute treatment for covered claims in public
hospitals is provided by an annual service agreement between ACC and the Ministry of Health,
and is funded by bulk payments from ACC to the Crown.
b) Direct purchase of other services by ACC for persons suffering a personal injury.
Payment data relating to this request is limited to services purchased directly by ACC only.
ACC takes privacy seriously
ACC does not routinely disclose claim counts fewer than four. Accordingly, some of the figures provided
below only indicate the claim count is fewer than four. This limits the potential for particular individuals
or matters specific to certain individuals from being identified. Withholding the data in the is way is
necessary to protect our clients’ privacy. This decision has been made under section 9(2)(a) of the Act. In
doing so, we considered the public interest in making the withheld figure available and determined that
it does not outweigh the need to protect their privacy.
COVID-19 vaccine related treatment injury claims
The data below has been extracted for treatment injury claims where the treatment event was
vaccination or
injection/medication,
adverse reaction/medication error and where the medication type
was recorded as
vaccine.
For this purpose of this response, a combination of a structured data extraction (for specific treatment
events, as above) and a free text search of the claim forms received by ACC which mention
Covid
vaccine,
Covid vaccination or the vaccine name
Comirnaty. Free text search methods are not reliable
Accident Compensation Corporation
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GOV-013192
data extraction methods and can result in anomalies in the data so the resulting claims have been
manual y reviewed to exclude claims are not relevant. For example, accidents occurring on the way to a
COVID-19 vaccination centre.
Please note that we can only respond based on the vaccine related claims lodged with ACC, and the
figures may differ to those previously reported or supplied. Up-to-date data on the number of adverse
effects resulting from the COVID-19 vaccine can be found on the MedSafe website
, here.
1. Regarding each of the 22 accepted claims, what has been the harm or injury likely caused
by the Covid-19 vaccine, and what remedy - financial or otherwise - has been provided to
each claimant?
As at 21 June 2021, 22 claims had been accepted for cover fol owing a COVID-19 vaccination. Eleven of
these claims were for adverse or al ergic reactions to the vaccine. Five were for an anaphylactic reaction
and the remaining six were covered for other injuries such as infections.
As of 11 August 2021, 14 of these 22 claims have had a payment made for treatment and, of these,
fewer than four have been paid compensation or rehabilitation payments. Fewer than four claims have
been paid over $500.
Table 1. Accepted COVID-19 claims by primary injury and payment type
Al Payments
Treatment
Compensation
Rehabilitation
Primary Injury
Claim Count
($)
Payments ($)
Payments ($)
Payments ($)
Adverse/Al ergic
Reaction
11
390
390
0
0
Anaphylactic Reaction
5
10,040
1,497
7,826
717
Other
6
9,351
1,998
7,353
0
Total
22
19,781
3,885
15,179
717
2. Among the 91 undecided claims, what have been the three most severe injuries possibly
caused by the vaccine?
As at 21 June 2021, 91 claims had not been decided. As ACC is a no-fault scheme, the severity of an
injury is not material for ACC to make a cover decision.
As noted in our previous response, measuring the impact of an injury on a person is chal enging. Among
other measures, ACC uses the overal cost of a treatment injury claim as an indicator of the severity of
the injury because general y more costly claims have a more severe impact on the person injured. While
not always directly related, overal cost is one measure of severity and impact.
Another measure is comparing the number of people who only need medical treatment for their
treatment injury with the number of people who receive additional support as well as treatment. An
entitlement claim is a claim that has received additional support such as weekly compensation or social
or vocational rehabilitation for a covered injury as well as any funded medical treatment required.
As of 11 August 2021, 36 of the 91 claims that were previously undecided have been accepted. To date,
no compensation or rehabilitation payments have been made for these claims and 23 claims had more
than $100 paid in treatment costs.
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GOV-013192
With regard to the remaining 55 undecided treatment injury claims, we are unable to use the measures
above to as a proxy to indicate the
three most severe injuries as payments for these claims have not yet
been made.
3. Among the 127 claimants, how many (if any) said that fol owing vaccination they had
experienced or suffered from facial paralysis, Bel 's Palsy, or related symptoms?
4. Since rol -out of the Covid-19 vaccine began until the present day, how many people have
made a claim to ACC for injury or harm relating to side-effects from the vaccine?
As of 7 August 2021, ACC had received 201 Treatment Injury claims related to the COVID-19 vaccine. A
manual review of these claims indicates that fewer than four claims related
to Bell’s Palsy (Facial Cranial
Nerve VII palsy). In reviewing for typical “related symptoms” for Bell’s Palsy beyond facial weakness, we
considered; dryness of the eye and mouth, taste disturbance and hyperacusis (noise sensitivity). In
addition, fewer than four claims received were related to trigeminal neuritis, which typical y results in
facial pain.
If you have any questions
If you have any questions, you can email me at
[email address].
If you are not happy with this response, you have the right to make a complaint to the Ombudsman.
Information about how to do this is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or by phoning 0800
802 602.
Nāku iti noa, nā
Sasha Wood
Manager Official Information Act Services
Government Engagement & Support
Accident Compensation Corporation
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Document Outline
