OIA Request — Treatment Injuries and Payments Arising From COVID-19 Nasal and Nasopharyngeal Testing

Under the Official Information Act 1982, please provide information concerning treatment-injury claims arising from the collection of samples for COVID-19 diagnostic testing.

The period is 1 January 2020 to the date of your response.

Please include claims where the treatment event or alleged injury involved nasal, nasopharyngeal, mid-turbinate, anterior-nares or oropharyngeal swabbing for PCR, LAMP, rapid-antigen or other COVID-19 testing.

Please provide:

1. The total number of claims lodged, accepted, declined, withdrawn and awaiting decision, broken down by year and sampling method where recorded.

Accepted and declined claims broken down by recorded injury category, including:

a. bleeding or epistaxis;

b. nasal, sinus or throat tissue injury;

c. infection;

d. nerve injury;

e. eye or orbital injury;

f. cerebrospinal-fluid leak or skull-base injury;

g. psychological injury consequential on a covered physical injury;

h. hospitalisation;

i. fatal injury; and

j. other recorded injury.

1. For declined claims, the recorded reason for decline.

Total payments made for accepted claims, broken down by:

a. treatment;

b. rehabilitation;

c. weekly compensation and lost earnings;

d. lump-sum or independence allowances; and

e. fatal-claim entitlements.

1. The number of accepted claims resulting in emergency treatment, hospitalisation, permanent impairment or death.
2. Aggregate claim information by age band, sex, ethnicity and region, subject to ordinary privacy suppression.
3. ACC’s data dictionary, claim codes and search methodology used to identify the claims.

Because sample-collection injuries may not have a dedicated structured code, please explain whether ACC searched free-text claim descriptions and identify the search terms used. Suggested terms include COVID, coronavirus, PCR, RAT, test, swab, nasal, nasopharyngeal, nose, throat and specimen.

1. Any internal safety signal, trend report or communication sent to or received from the Ministry of Health, Health New Zealand or HDC concerning injuries from COVID-19 sample collection.
2. Any policy or guidance concerning treatment-injury cover for damage caused by COVID-19 diagnostic sampling.

Please exclude injuries arising solely from vaccination unless the same claim also records an injury from diagnostic sample collection. No personally identifying information is requested.

Please provide tables in CSV or XLSX format and supporting documents as searchable PDFs.

If any part requires refinement, please consult me in writing before considering refusal, charging or extension. For anything withheld, identify the applicable OIA provision and the countervailing public-interest assessment.

Please acknowledge receipt and provide the statutory due date.

Kind regards,

Tracy Lynch