Features

A worker injured on the job

By Barbera Gayle

A WORKER WHO was injured on the job has complained that despite submitting the medical bills to her employer, she has refused to pay them.

The worker who is a household helper complained that she worked with a family in Clarendon for several years and in June last year, she was sitting on the verandah when a ceiling tile fell and hit her in the head.

"I blacked out for about ten minutes after the incident and a neighbour took me to the doctor. I am having headaches since the tile hit me in my head and have to be visiting the doctor on a monthly basis.

"My employer has refused to pay my medical bills although I tell her each time what it costs and even show her the bills for medicine which I bought at the pharmacy.

"After the incident, I could not work for three weeks and she paid me for the time I was away on sick leave. I noticed when I returned to work, my employer started acting strange towards me. When I asked her any questions, she seldom answered me.

"One day I told her that I needed help from her with my medical expenses and she said that was not her business. She said she did not tell me to sit on the verandah and if I had enough work to do, I would not have time to be sitting on her verandah.

Medical expenses

"I told her she was being very unfair to me because it was not my fault that the tile fell on my head. She told me that I did not have to work with her and could find employment elsewhere.

"Two weeks after we had the argument, she told me that she did not need a helper anymore and gave me two weeks pay and sent me home. I was surprised that my employer would get rid of me because she did not want to pay the medical expenses."

If your employer has refused to pay you then you can sue her for the medical expenses. The Occupiers Liability Act makes provision for the occupier of a premises to have a common duty of care to all visitors. Section 2 of the act states that "The common duty of care is the duty to take such care as in all the circumstances of the case is reasonable to see that the visitor will be reasonably safe in using the premises for the purposes for which he is invited or permitted by the occupier to be there".