37 After receiving three letters about the same issue from a complainant, the ­Ombudsman finally had to write to him that he would not receive a reply if he sent any more letters about the same matter. The man’s dissatisfaction concerned his wife’s industrial injury case. She worked as an auxiliary nurse and had developed pains in both the small of her back and her neck. The woman had received compensation for permanent injury, but only for her back pains. According to the register of industrial injuries issued by the ­National Board of Industrial Injuries, her neck injury could not have been caused by her work and she therefore could not be granted compensation for her neck pains. However, the reason the Ombudsman could not consider the complaint was that the decision on the industrial injury case was more than twelve months old and a complaint about the decision was therefore time-barred under the Ombudsman Act. The man was not pleased that the Ombudsman could not help in the case and told him so several times. When the Ombudsman finally wrote that the man would not receive a reply to any more letters about the same subject, the man demanded a personal apology from the Ombudsman directed to his wife. The Ombudsman refused to apologise. When the man wrote again, the Ombudsman did not reply. ‘Complaint curtailment’ is the term used when the Ombudsman feels a need to ‘cut off’ certain complainants. An unemployed teacher called the Ombudsman and was transferred to a lawyer. The teacher explained that he was not entitled to unemployment benefit and had asked the job centre for help to acquire a truck certificate. The job centre had rejected his request. The man explained that he had been offered a job provided he could get a truck certificate. The lawyer at the Ombudsman’s office asked the man to send in any papers he had within four weeks. Four weeks later, the Ombudsman had heard nothing further from the man and the case was closed. The Ombudsman usually asks for material to be sent within four weeks.