The death of a Personal Injury client presents unique challenges for Case Managers and other medico-legal professionals, especially the care team.
Do you ever think:
How do I grieve this loss?
How do I honour the memory of this client?
How am I supposed to behave?
What do I practically need to do for the care team?
How do I get support from?
Coping
The first thing to remember is that when working with vulnerable people, death is unavoidable. It is not your fault – it is the nature of the work you and others bravely put yourselves forward to do.
It is also important to remember that your own life experiences and culture will colour how you respond to your client’s death.
This blueprint will be further affected by the way the client died, their age, the circumstances and who they have left behind.
Of course, as a professional, your grief will be simultaneously expressed as you seek to comfort others. Be realistic about what you can offer others.
An unexpected death, through accident, suicide, or illness can leave the professionals in a state of shock or disbelief. It is important to validate this part of the grieving experience and that of the grieving family.
Probate rules and what matters
When a Personal Injury client dies, there can be financial repurcussions that need managing.
For example, if the client is funded via a periodical payment, their funds are immediately shut down meaning there are case managers, therapists and care teams suddenly without part of their income, and for many of our care teams, colleagues without a fulltime job and without any financial support. This can be incredibly distressing for them.
At times like this, communicating with kindness and acknowledgement is crucial. Care teams may not get any redundancy pay, they might not even be paid for their last shifts. At the same time, no other professional is going to be paid for their time so our humanness is all we have.
Be prepared with a policy
Have a policy in place for your care teams that explains to them what to expect when a client dies.
Be clear about the expectations that the surviving family would want the care team to do.
Provide details about who to contact should the carer have any questions.
To anyone newly bereaved, even the smallest, most simple of actions take on added weight and meaning. A few kind words, a compassionate response, may be all it takes to make an impossible situation that much easier.
Your care teams may forget a lot as their lives move forward from this sadness and they continue on to different roles, but they’ll always remember how you treated them in their moments of grief and despair.
**All it takes is one kind response to change everything**
