Local Focus: Isolated and alone while losing his legs

In August 2021, Gisborne resident Josh Grant went to his GP with pins and needles in his foot. By the evening he was in the Gisborne Hospital emergency department, with numbness traveling from his legs to his chest.

Originally, Grant was covered by ACC as he thought he had injured his back at work, and ACC covered his wages for two months.

But when he was diagnosed with the rare neurological condition transverse myelitis, he was no longer eligible for ACC.

When ACC pulled the plug on its coverage, he didn’t realise there would be a huge discrepancy between his coverage under ACC and that of the Ministry of Health.

Grant was airlifted to Waikato Hospital on August 18, 2021, the day after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Covid-19 Alert Level 4, meaning Josh had to go alone.

His paralysis continued up his legs to his C4 vertebrae, meaning he could only move his facial muscles.

“When you go through losing the ability to walk and doing that on your own in a little room by yourself - it was very, very tough,” he said.

It took seven days for his parents, Karen Bennett and Darryl Grant, to be granted an exemption to travel to see their son in Hamilton.

“It’s unfair that he went through that on his own,” Bennett said.

“We kept getting locked out of the hospital. In the end, Darryl was the only one that was allowed in.”

He celebrated his 24th birthday in Waikato Hospital, his father being the only one allowed to visit him. Desperate to have time with her son on his birthday, Bennett spoke to him over a brick wall.

“There was a little garden that Daryl could take him into, and I could chat to him over the wall for a few minutes. So that, as a mum, was really hard,” she said.

Finally, his medication worked and he began to stabilise. This reversed some of the paralysis and gave him the ability to use his hands again.

But during his stay in Waikato Hospital, he had an allergic reaction to penicillin.

“The nurse was in tears and said he’d [gone into] anaphylactic shock and [had] a cardiac arrest. So that was pretty hard. He actually died there for a bit, but he came back,” his dad said.

On October 27, the day after Grant’s birthday, he was moved to Auckland Spinal Rehabilitation Unit in Ōtara.

His family requested a transfer to Burwood Hospital in Christchurch, where there weren’t any Covid-19 infections reported, which meant they could be with their son.

“We were told that the Gisborne region is under Auckland, so we had to accept that. When Josh went to the spinal unit once again, he was there on his own and we were locked out,” Bennett said.

The family wasn’t able to visit him again till mid-December.

Josh returned to Gisborne Hospital on January 27, 2022 and returned home on February 18. The family then had to pay for modifications to make their home wheelchair-friendly.

The front door is not accessible for wheelchair users, so they needed to concrete the driveway to the back door.

This wasn’t covered by the Ministry of Health. However, the ministry has approved a replacement back door, which the family is still waiting to be installed.

“You see a lot of other people who have injuries instead of illnesses, and their injury is alcohol-related. They are better off in terms of funding and support through ACC,” said Grant.

His friends started a Givealittle page to help him purchase a van so he could get out into the community and to appointments. His extended family also chipped in to buy Grant a fishing drone.

Alana Reed, who is Grant’s social worker and is also his cousin, secured funding through the lotteries fund to purchase equipment to motorise his wheelchair.

Grant has started working for a family friend doing admin a few hours a week. He is also working with a physio to get stronger to be able to gain more independence.

Public Interest Journalism Fund.