Dr. Arthur Ellice-Flint Case Report

The worker alleges that he suffered a stroke due to the pressures experienced at work, including negotiating tensions between managerial staff and other employees, increasing volume of demands due to a MYOB file being corrupted and policies and procedures requiring being written, implemented, and presented, as well as material changes to his role. The worker's case is that the stress contributed in a material way to the occurrence of the stroke such as to make it compensable pursuant to section 7 of the RTW Act.

Medical evidence

Dr Arthur Ellice-Flint, on behalf of Dr Andrew Zacest, provided a medical report dated 21 July 2016. Dr Ellice-Flint found that it was likely that the worker's stroke was a result of high blood pressure, and that

In his first report, Professor Burns requests further information before providing an opinion. The second report provides his opinions and their bases.

Professor Burns found that the worker's hypertension was secondary to the stroke, rather than a consequence of it, unlike Dr Ellice-Flint. Professor Burns based this opinion on the lack of history of hypertension and no evidence of an enlarged heart or changes suggestive of longstanding hypertension, having had regard to a normal echocardiogram undertaken in 2011.

Professor Burns noted the worker's history of epilepsy. However, he found that a previous MRI scan showed no abnormality in the brain that might lead to bleeding. He stated that none of the medications that might cause bleeding prior to the onset of the cerebral haemorrhage.

The report concludes that the cause of the spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage is undetermined, which he stated was not an unusual finding.

He continued that there was no plausible explanation to indicate that the cerebral haemorrhage, whatever the cause, was work-related. He stated that stress in general is not considered a significant risk factor in the causation of stroke whether that be cerebral haemorrhage or cerebral

Dr David Phillips, the National Director of Family Voice Australia, the worker's boss, wrote an email to Gallagher Bassett in which he provides a description of the office manager position the worker held at the time of his stroke, and a list of 'potential stressors' that could have arisen from the challenges of the position.

The stressors can be summarised as follows:

• The worker was new to the role and had been employed for only about 3 months.

• The worker had not worked in an accounting role for some 5 years.

• The worker chose not to accept more assistance to transition into the role by the former occupant working with him.

• The MYOB file became corrupted and he worked with staff to re-enter data.

• He offered the worker additional help but he declined, saying that they were making good progress.

• Since the stroke, he arranged for someone else to continue the work, and a number of errors the worker had made became apparent, that he says might indicate that the worker was not coping with the