What is right about a system that gives a drunk driver injured in an accident they caused more care and support than a person who has been disabled by cancer?
That is the question Palmerston woman Heather Turner and many others in New Zealand want answered.
The discrepancies between publicly funded care and support for disabled people provided by ACC and those provided by the Ministry of Health were simply not fair, Mrs Turner said.
ACC covers people injured or disabled through an accident, while anybody who is disabled from birth or because of ill health is covered by the Ministry of Health.
It is a frustrating issue for Mrs Turner, who cares for her husband at home after he was left in a wheelchair with spastic tetroplegia following a battle with a malignant brain stem tumour five years ago.
She describes herself as an unpaid carer, yet if her husband had been disabled in an accident rather than by illness, she could be entitled under ACC to be employed as his carer.
A Port Chalmers woman is also having a battle with ACC after she was unable to work while having chemotherapy.
Health reporters Edith Schofield and Elspeth McLean look at the adequacy of assistance for people in their position.
