KEY POINTS:
A woman who contracted to provide rehabilitation services from a Maori cultural perspective to the Accident Compensation Corporation has admitted 37 dishonesty charges.
The services were to be provided by health professionals contracted through her company. They were meant to be from occupational therapists, registered nurses, physiotherapists, and speech therapists, but the corporation found that the 50-year-old woman was doing them herself.
The summary of facts to the Christchurch District Court yesterday showed that during September and October 2005, the woman submitted a number of social rehabilitation assessments to the ACC managers which were deemed to be sub-standard both in wording and content. Subsequent inquiries established that she had completed the assessments and reports herself, rather than using the appropriate and qualified registered health professionals. She had then invoiced the corporation for completing these assessments and reports. The woman has no formal health qualifications and is not a registered health professional. The corporation now wants her to pay back $12,587.
A depositions hearing was due to take place yesterday before JPs Bill Martin and John O'Hara, but before it began, the woman pleaded guilty to 37 charges and 37 others were withdrawn. She has admitted charges of fraud by deception and using a document with intent to obtain a pecuniary advantage.
Defence counsel Judith Walshe successfully applied for interim name suppression because the woman was now providing mental health services, and because publication could have an "extremely undeserved" impact on her grandchildren at school. The order also means the name of her company cannot be published.
The JPs remanded her on bail to a crown sentencing session on October 19, and ordered that a pre-sentence report and reparation report be prepared.
- NZPA
