R.S.I. support group being planned

Press, 29 September 1988, Page 9

R.S.I. support group being planned

A Christchurch woman who lost her job earlier this year because of the debilitating condition, repetitive strain injury (R. 5.1. plans to set up an R.S.I. sufferers’ support group to help those also afflicted. Mrs Gaye Meffan worked for a trade union in Christchurch until eight months ago when she lost her job because of R.S.I. She is now permanently disabled by R.S.I. She said she was adequately compensated for the job loss but found little support or advice available for R.S.I. sufferers. “More and more people are being affected by it and they don’t know how to~ deal with it or who to turn to,” she said. She believed there were about 64,000 sufferers in New Zealand last year. Mr Mike Smith, an official of the Canterbury Clerical Workers’ Union, said last evening the numbers of R.S.I. victims had reached “epidemic proportions," in Christchurch. “It is one helluva problem,” he said. "We have even had clerical workers who when they got R.S.I. in one hand changed their emphasis or stance and got it in the other hand.” It did not just hit clerical workers but all keyboard users throughout industry, he said. R.S.I. also raised some thorny issues including whether sufferers should be compensated through the Accident Compensation Corporation. Mrs Meffan said the criteria for receiving compensation for R.S.I. were applied haphazardly by the corporation. There had also been studies, recently published in Australia, which had attempted to disprove R.S.l.’s existence, which was very distressing for sufferers, she said. The disease was similar to arthritis, sufferers of which had their own support network and information available whereas there was little available on R. 5.1., Mrs Meffan said.