KEY POINTS:
When wheelchair-bound Melanie Trevethick had to pay more than $90,000 herself for a modified van, because her disability was from illness and not an accident, she vowed to fight this "blatant discrimination" at the heart of the health system.
The Ministry of Health will provide up to $12,900 towards the cost of a van for those disabled by disease - on condition the person is in fulltime work, education or vocational work.
The Accident Compensation Corporation, in contrast, will pay the full cost, which can now be $110,000.
"It was blatant discrimination. I was incensed by the disparity in funding so I laid a claim with the Human Rights Commission claiming discrimination," said Ms Trevethick, whose case reaches the High Court at Wellington today.
Now aged 51, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a progressive disease of the central nervous system, in 1996. Even standing is now impossible for her. She uses a powered wheelchair and a caregiver has to help her in and out of bed.
She bought the wheelchair-friendly van in 2003 because it had become too hard to haul herself into her car from a wheelchair. And she has to drive a lot. Her intellectually disabled daughter Eve, 18, has an immune deficiency disorder that necessitates frequent trips to hospital in Hamilton, from their home in a retirement-complex unit in Cambridge.
Ms Trevethick receives $260 a week from the state on her invalid benefit, including a $37 disability allowance. Her daughter gets $280. "It's extremely difficult," said Ms Trevethick.
Her claim of discrimination and for financial compensation for the van and loss of dignity was dismissed by the Human Rights Review Tribunal last year. In the court case starting today she will appeal against that.
The tribunal ruled that the differentiation she had highlighted between accidents and diseases related to the cause of her disability, and not to the fact that she was disabled. Thus the matter fell outside the banned grounds of discrimination in section 21 of the Human Rights Act.
But the tribunal noted that its decision had to be a narrowly legal one and that Ms Trevethick had a "legitimate political point to make".
"We have considerable sympathy for [her] argument that there is a substantial social inequity arising out of the fact that similarly circumstanced people are treated differently depending on the cause of their disability."
The case has struck a chord among health and disability groups, many of which have expressed support, including the Cancer Society, the Cerebral Palsy Society and Alzheimers NZ.
Disability Issues Minister Ruth Dyson said the generally greater provision for ACC claimants than those funded by the Health Ministry was unfair, but her Government had "done a lot to reduce those anomalies and inequities".
Her office highlighted numerous improvements, including Budget increases of $14 million this year and $10 million last year for wheelchairs, home modifications and other "environmental support services" for ministry-funded disabled people.
The 1984-90 Labour Government planned to put disability funding on the same level as ACC but the subsequent National Administration never advanced the matter.
* THE DISPUTE
An invalid beneficiary is taking the Government to court to get the higher level of support available to claimants under the accident compensation scheme.
She argues the Crown is discriminating between people with the same kinds of disabilities depending on whether they were caused by an accident or a disease, breaching the Human Rights Act.
The Crown argues that the act's definition of disability does not make it unlawful to differentiate between people based on the cause of their disability.
At stake is many millions of dollars in greater state funding for modified vehicles, home-care, wheelchairs, income support and more.
