The Queensland Government was “missing the point” when it argued victims of Bundaberg’s Dr Jayant Patel could in fact receive substantial payouts under the state’s new compensation laws, personal injury experts said.

Attorney-General Rod Welford has accused lawyers representing Dr Patel’s patients of “scaremongering” after they claimed many of Dr Patel’s patients would only receive payouts in the realm of a few thousand dollars under the current system.

Under changes introduced several years ago, injuries are now ranked on a scale of 1 to 100 with each ranking assigned a dollar value, up to a maximum of $250,000 – therefore strictly controlling how much a patient can receive for pain and suffering.

Lawyers claim only the most serious cases of tetraplegia can be awarded the maximum payout and payouts assigned to most injuries have been significantly cut, some by up to 70 per cent.

But Mr Welford said while it was true general damages payouts had been capped at $250,000, there were other categories of compensation a court could award.

“One category is economic loss and a person can receive financial compensation of up to three times average weekly earnings . . . an award can also be made to cover medical and rehabilitation costs,” Mr Welford said.

“Therefore the total amount of compensation awarded by a court in a negligence claim is based on all of these categories and can be substantial.”

But personal injury specialist and Australian Lawyers Alliance representative Chris Newton said if Bundaberg victims were pensioners or otherwise unemployed, for example, they would be ineligible to apply for economic loss.

Medical costs could also not be applied for because most were using the public health system.

“Therefore, all that most of these people have got to rely on is the general damages system and that system is grossly unfair,” Mr Newton said.

“The amount of money assigned to many injuries has been reduced to such an extent that, in a lot of cases, it won’t make commercial sense to pursue the claims.”

He is preparing a submission on behalf of the ALA which will be presented to the Government within weeks for a scheduled review of the general damages injury scale.

Carter Capner partner Ian Brown, whose firm is representing more than 120 of Dr Patel’s patients, said: “The point is when the Government brought in this law it changed all of those things, before there was no restrictions on loss of income, there were no restrictions on claiming for domestic assistance around the house, there were no 100-point damages scale.

“I do not resile from what I have said previously about the problems with this system and I would love the Government to come forward and give some evidence that what I’m saying is incorrect.”

Slater and Gordon partner James Higgins, whose firm is representing two of Dr Patel’s victims, predicted people would be “stunned” by the unfairness of the system when payouts were finally awarded.