I wish to share my experience with the pitfalls of being diagnosed after receiving a redundancy, regaining employment and then subsequently being denied Sickness Allowance payment from Centrelink at the commencement of unpaid sick leave.
I was made redundant late 2013. During the period of unemployment I was informed by Centrelink that I wasn’t eligible for any payments for several months. That was fine, as it was always my intention to regain employment, which I achieved within a few weeks. I subsequently spent a significant portion of redundancy money on home repairs and improvements, paying off large debts etc.
Shortly after starting my new job I was diagnosed and due to the short duration of employment, I very quickly ran out of sick leave. My employer suggested that perhaps I could come in to work early to make up lost time spent at appointments and that I create a spreadsheet to log all the time I was absent, in 15 minute increments so it could be used for my leave without pay forms. I therefore made sure I spent as little time as possible attending appointments, dashing out of work to get to appointments and rushing back afterwards, which was very stressful particularly when some appointments consisted of learning upsetting information.
In anticipation of more time off work, I advised Centrelink that I would be applying for Sickness Allowance and spent a significant amount of time filling out the lengthy form and making an appointment with my GP just to obtain a Centrelink medical certificate. It took a month to be notified that this allowance was not approved to commence until the date I would have been eligible for Newstart Allowance, had I not already gained employment – i.e. a two month delay. This was due to Centrelink considering the redundancy payment to be unspent income.
In early February 2014 I had a bi-lateral mastectomy and TRAM reconstruction, which necessitated six weeks off work with no pay, return to work late March 2014.
I lodged an appeal with Centrelink in an attempt to bring forward the commencement date of payments, on the grounds that I had spent the redundancy. Unfortunately as I had more than $542 in my bank account at that time, this was denied as I wasn’t deemed to be in severe financial hardship. I wasn’t aware of this criterion in order to be eligible for reconsideration. The funds in my account had actually been re-drawn from my home loan and were to be used to pay for bills and food.
While I was off work recuperating I received a notice from Centrelink notifying me that I had an appointment to attend relating to Newstart Allowance and I needed to provide details of my recent job search efforts. It took several phone calls, each time on hold for over an hour to explain that I already had a job, that I was off work on unpaid sick leave and it was my intention to return to work asap. As it turned out, my return to work was in the same week as Centrelink payments were due to start, therefore I received one week reduced payment due to first week back at work being half days. (I returned to work one week early for financial reasons).
The whole time I was off work I received no income or allowance from Centrelink. As a single parent, it has been a significant financial set-back. If I didn’t have a home loan that I could re-draw from, perhaps I may have had to consider defaulting on bills. In all I have lost six weeks income, defaulted on six weeks home loan repayments and additionally re-drawn on home loan payments in advance, something I could ill-afford.
I hope this information is helpful to someone else in the future.
