"8A - (1) In any case where a worker suffers injury by accident, or is disabled or dies as the result of any disease, arising out of and in the course of his employment, and the worker or his dependants is or are entitled to compensation under section 5 in respect of such injury or disease, the employer shall, subject to this section, be liable to pay, in addition to the compensation, if any, otherwise payable by the employer in accordance with this Act -

(a) the reasonable costs of any medical, hospital, nursing, and ambulance services reasonably incurred by the worker by reason of the injury or, in the case of disablement caused by disease, by reason of the disease, on and after the date of disablement;"

2 The expression "medical service", is defined in s.3 of the Act as follows:-

" 'medical service' includes -

(a) attendance, examination, or treatment of any kind by a medical practitioner, dentist, optician, masseur, or chiropodist;

(b) the provision of skiagrams or crutches, or of artificial members, eyes, or teeth or of spectacles or hearing aids;

(c) the provision to or for a worker, otherwise than as a patient in a hospital, of medical or surgical aids to rehabilitation, or of curative appliances or apparatus;

(d) the provision by a pharmaceutical chemist of medicines or curative apparatus, appliances, or materials; and

(e) the cost to a worker of any fares, travelling expenses, and maintenance necessarily and reasonably incurred by him in obtaining any medical service;"

The plaintiff contends that these costs of alterations and additions to the carport and verandah at the plaintiff's home, and the asphalting of her driveway, come within the expression contained in sub-para(c) of the definition of "medical service", in that they are "medical or surgical aids to rehabilitation". The defendant argues that although it is conceded that these costs were incurred as a result of medical advice, and are necessary and appropriate aids to the plaintiff's rehabilitation, yet they cannot properly be described either as medical aids or surgical aids to rehabilitation.

3 For the purpose of deciding the issue, it does not matter whether or not the word "includes", in the definition of "medical service" in s.3, should be read as "means and includes", so as to be exhaustive, as it was held to be in a similar provision by the Full Court of the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Thomas v Ferguson Transformers Pty Ltd (1979) 1 NSWLR 216, following an earlier decision in that Court. Even if "includes" should be so read in our definition, which I should be inclined to doubt, the question remains whether an expression contained within that definition applies to the items under review. Counsel on both sides informed me that their thorough researches have not revealed any relevant authority, even though there are similar expressions in Workers' Compensation Acts elsewhere - eg, s.26(2)(d) of the Workers' Compensation Act 1958 of Victoria see Anderson and Rendit, Workers' Compensation Victoria, 3rd edn, p910.10.

4 The case is therefore one of first impression. The aid to rehabilitation must be a medical or surgical aid. In my opinion, "medical and "surgical" must be given their ordinary, common meanings (for which, see the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary), so that a medical aid to rehabilitation must be of its own nature one which pertains or relates to, or has to do with, medicine in some material way; and "surgical aid" will have a similar meaning in relation to surgery. Upon that basis, none of the services under review qualifies as a medical or surgical aid to rehabilitation, because none has any material relationship or connection with medicine or surgery. It would be unwise to mention any but the simplest and most obvious examples which would come within the description; so I shall say only that a pharmaceutical remedy, if it were not already specifically covered by the definition, and a heart pacemaker, would qualify respectively as a medical and a surgical aid to rehabilitation. Thus, the fact that a particular means of aiding a sick or injured person's recovery of health may have been ordered or prescribed by a medical practitioner or a surgeon will not necessarily bring it within the category; and in this case does not. The defendant should have judgment.