Medicinal cannabis
Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (13:18): My question is for the Minister for Workplace Safety and relates to medicinal cannabis. As I raised with you in the house earlier this year, and you confirmed, 90 per cent of medicinal cannabis patients are being denied remuneration for reasonable costs resulting from their injuries when those costs relate to medically prescribed medicinal cannabis. This is despite it working and despite these patients having exhausted all other treatment options. Where we as a state have an office for medicinal cannabis, where we have a medicinal cannabis industry development plan and where the government’s own website refers to clinical evidence for chronic non-cancer pain, WorkCover is still denying these patients. So my question to the minister is: if medicinal cannabis is the only treatment that works for individuals suffering from chronic pain resulting from a workplace injury and the only way they can return to work, why are 90 per cent being refused reimbursement?
Ms STITT (Western Metropolitan—Minister for Workplace Safety, Minister for Early Childhood) (13:19): I thank Ms Patten for her question and her ongoing interest in these issues. Of course we are always open to looking at ways in which we can help injured workers recover safely and return to work as quickly and as safely as possible. As I indicated to you, I think, last time you asked me about these issues, I am absolutely prepared to continue to look at whether there are further opportunities in relation to treatment. However, I will restate that these matters are not matters that are appropriately decided by me as minister or any MP; they are guided by the medical evidence. Of course there is a policy in place in WorkSafe around new and emerging treatments, which are not static in nature but they have to be taken into consideration when treatment plans are being looked at and decisions are being made by the expert medical panel. But as I have already indicated to you, Ms Patten, I was encouraged that at least there were 10 per cent of injured workers who were having that kind of treatment approved. But I am always open to talking with you further about the way in which these policies are managed within WorkSafe.
Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (13:21): Thanks, Minister. I have appreciated the conversation on this. In the last two weeks I have had another couple of WorkCover patients who have been refused or who have reported to me. As you have stated before, you are committed to making sure that all injured workers get access to the treatment and support that they need to enable them to recover and return to meaningful work, and I think none of us in this chamber disagrees with that. By way of supplementary—I think for me and people in the medical profession to further understand this—is it possible that you can provide, in a deidentified way, the reasons why 90 per cent of those 117 patients were denied reimbursement by WorkSafe?
Ms STITT (Western Metropolitan—Minister for Workplace Safety, Minister for Early Childhood) (13:22): I thank Ms Patten for her supplementary question. Of course I have to be quite careful with privacy considerations and the like, but I am very willing to see what other information could be provided. If you have individual examples that you want me to seek some further advice from WorkSafe on, in a deidentified way, I am more than happy to see what it might be possible to provide you with.