Portrait of a citizen: Young Industrial Injury Victim

Two white ring binders full of documents

When Jeanett’s industrial injury first started, she spent a long time reading all the letters she received. To day she has eventually stopped reading the letters thoroughly. Out of the total of 25 letters that she received only four required an answer.

”Every time I get a letter from the National Board of Industrial Injuries I get a stomach ache. Are they writing to tell me I am not entitled to anything, or will I get compensation? Sometimes I’ve looked in the mailbox every day just because I was hoping to receive news from them.”

Jeanett, industrial injury victim, 24 years

Jeanett has two white ring binders bulging with letters from the National Board of Industrial Injuries. They began to arrive when the agency reopened her case three years ago.

“One day two letters came at once. They were in separate envelopes, so I assume they must be spending some money on postage over there”.

Jeanett fractured her spine while she was helping a resident at the nursing home she was training in. The pain is slowly getting worse. Nowadays she spends much of her day in bed: it is simply too painful to be up. Three years after the accident, her insurance company encouraged her to ask the National Board of Industrial Injuries to reopen her case.

“I wasn’t expecting much to come of it because I had heard that the National Board of Industrial Injuries wasn’t easy to deal with. At the time I was simply hoping the pain would go away”.

When Jeanett succeeded in having her case reopened, she spent a long time reading all the letters she received. Her mother works as an accountant and helped her to read the letters, because Jeanett found them filled with difficult words.

“My mother took charge of a great deal of it because I don’t have much energy to spare. All those different people who had something to say about my case, and then the National Board of Industrial Injuries sent me their statements”.

Jeanett eventually stopped reading the letters thoroughly. Out of the total of 25 letters that she received only four required an answer. The most important one was a questionnaire in which she was supposed to explain how the accident had occurred and how it had affected her work life. This annoyed Jeanett, because she felt that her accident had serious consequences for her whole life. The pain has affected everything from her relationships with her friends to her ability to wear heels.

Jeanett ended by hand writing a letter to the National Board of Industrial Injuries in which she pointed out the consequences of the pain for all aspects of her daily life.

In the past eight months Jeanett has received no correspondence from the National Board of Industrial Injuries, and that makes her uneasy.

“They have all the doctors’ statements and all the insurance papers, so why haven’t I had my final decision? I would be happy with a letter explaining how far along they are in the administration process plus an explanation of why they can’t make a decision on the matter yet,” says Jeanett, who is hoping for a compensation amount that will be big enough to allow her to have some alterations made to her house that will make it easier to keep clean. She has tried calling the National Board of Industrial Injuries and asking why she had not heard anything. That led nowhere.

“The lady just said that my call had been noted, and that she would look into it, I mean why it was taking so long. And I haven’t heard anything since”.

However, Jeanett is determined to keep calling once in a while, just to be sure that her case is still current.