Megan Main

Oh, Mike, it's a big number.

You know, two million a year, as you say, five and a half thousand a day.

And, you know, every one of those is a person who's had something happen to them.

And it could be minor or it could be life changing.

What's your job?

It's both, Mike.

Our job is to help to prevent injuries, also to help people recover as fast as they can and get back to work or get back to independence.

But I think the key thing for us here with this report is we can't do that on our own.

We've done a lot of work to get people rehabilitated faster, earlier intervention, more one-to-one case management.

We've got some really strong prevention programs.

But we need every New Zealander playing their role, having a hmm.

We need every employer supporting their people back to work.

It's a team effort.

So we will always be here for people who need us long term and sometimes their whole lives.

What we've seen, though, over the last decade is an increase in the number of people with what appear to be less serious injuries, often starting as a strain or a sprain, that are

having weekly compensations, that means they're off work, and being off work for longer.

So that's where we've been really focused over the last couple of years, and that's where we're seeing really good results with people getting back to work earlier.

I've never met anyone, Mike, who wants to hurt themselves.

I think the vast majority of people do the right thing.

Well, that's why we have one-to-one case management where we're getting in early and we have levers for people that we feel aren't as active in their recovery.