MARTIAL STORY and REPATRIATION COMMISSION

Administrative Appeals Tribunal

DECISION AND REASONS FOR DECISION [2009] AATA 582

ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL      )

)          No 2007/5429

VETERAN'S APPEALS   DIVISION		)
Re		MARTIAL STORY

Applicant

And REPATRIATION COMMISSION

Respondent

DECISION

Tribunal Senior Member M D Allen

Date 6 August 2009

PlaceSydney

Decision The decision under review is AFFIRMED

....................[sgd]..........................

M D Allen
  Senior Member

17.      Having been referred to Dr Altman, the Applicant was diagnosed as suffering from a PTSD.

18.      Following a hearing before the VRB, in order to assist that Board reconcile the difference in opinion between Dr’s Keshava and Altman, the Applicant was referred by the Respondent to psychiatrist Dr Synnott. In a comprehensive report dated 24 November 2006, Dr Synnott opined that the Applicant did not suffer from a PTSD but that the most likely diagnosis was one of Anxiety Disorder currently in remission.

19.      The Applicant disagreed with this opinion and obtained a reference to a Dr Schmidtman at St John of God Hospital, Richmond. The 2 page report produced by Dr Schmidtman, in which she states that the Applicant suffers from PTSD, can only be described as superficial.

20.      Although Dr Schmidtman apparently saw the Applicant on 27 March 2007, her report is dated 9 May 2007. In the report she confuses the history given and makes errors of detail.

21.      Subsequent to the instigation of his appeal to this Tribunal, the Applicant was referred by his solicitors to psychiatrist Dr Dinnen. Dr Dinnen diagnosed a PTSD with associated features of Depression and Alcohol Abuse.

22.      The Respondent referred the Applicant to Dr Lewin, psychiatrist, and also to Professor Mattick, the Professor of Drug and Alcohol Studies and the Director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of NSW.

23.      Dr Lewin’s opinion is that the Applicant, whilst continuing to abuse alcohol, does not have a current psychiatric illness.

24.      The Applicant’s condition of Alcohol Abuse was accepted by the VRB in 2007. Professor Mattick accepts the diagnosis of Alcohol Abuse on the basis of the Applicant’s history of observing a monk pour petrol on himself and setting himself alight. Significantly he does comment:

“Whether these events occurred or not is a matter for expert historical comment.”

25.      As pointed out in Benjamin v Repatriation Commission supra, the primary question for the Tribunal is from what disease does the veteran suffer. That decision is to be made to the Tribunals “reasonable satisfaction”, ie upon the balance of probabilities. See Repatriation Commission v Smith (1987) 15 FCR 327.

26.      Instrument No. 5 of 2008 defines PTSD as meaning a psychiatric condition meeting certain specific diagnostic criteria, including:

“(a) The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which;

(i) The person experienced, witnessed or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others; and

(ii) The person’s response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror.”