If an employee meets with an accident resulting in their disablement or death such employee or the dependants of such employee shall be entitled to the benefits provided for and prescribed in the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act.
The following TYPES OF COMPENSATION can be claimed:
Medical expenses and conveyance of injured employee;
Temporary Disability (including partial disablement or total disablement);
Permanent Disability - The Body will not recover (e.g. loss of an eye) or
Death
In this article, we will focus on the right to compensation for a temporary disability including partial disablement or total disablement.
COMPENSATION FOR TEMPORARY DISABLEMENT
Compensation is money paid by the Compensation Fund to employees who were injured on duty, to replace loss of wages and/or to pay medical expenses.
Section 47(1) of COIDA stipulates that “compensation for temporary or total disablement must be calculated on the basis set out in Item 1 of Schedule 4.”
Payment of compensation shall take place in the form of periodical payments at such times and intervals as the commissioner may determine.
3 days or less
Section 22 stipulates that “No periodical payments shall be made in respect of temporary total disablement or temporary partial disablement which lasts for three days or less.”
Therefore, if the employee is off work for three days or less, they will not receive compensation from the Compensation Fund. The Compensation Fund would simply not be able to deal with all these minor cases.
4 days – 3 months
If an employee is booked off due to an Injury on Duty (IOD) for 4 days or longer, but less than 3 months, they will receive “periodic payments” of 75% of their earnings from the first day, until their condition has stabilised or they are fit to return to work.
The employer in whose service an employee is at the time of the accident shall be liable for the payment of the compensation referred to above for the first three months from the date of the accident.
The employer can claim these three months' payment back from the Compensation Fund.
Longer than 3 months
If an employee is off work for more than three months the money (salary/ wages) must be claimed directly from the Compensation Commission.
Periodical payments shall take place for so long as the temporary total disablement continues, but not for a period exceeding 12 months.
Longer than 12 months
If such disablement continues for longer than 12 months, the commissioner may order the continuation of those payments for such further period as he may determine.
Temporary total disablement continuing for more than 24 months may be treated by the commissioner as permanent disablement.
Claims will not be paid if:
The claim is made more than 12 months after the accident or death, or after the disease is diagnosed.
The employee is off work for three days or less.
The accident resulted from the employee's own wrongdoing (unless they are seriously disabled or died in the accident, the fund will still pay compensation).
The employee unreasonably refuses to have medical treatment.
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