A Joint Project of the Canadian Injured Workers Alliance (CIWA) and the Canadian Pain Coalition (CPC)
CIWA and CPC have undertaken to collaborate on an exciting project involving research and development of a tool kit for those dealing with returning to work after sustaining an injury. A main focus of the project is dealing with a return to work plan while trying to manage chronic pain.
We have received funding assistance from the Federal government’s Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) to move forward with this project.
To date, this project has involved research through engaging a research specialist to do a literature review, both domestic and international. We have formed a steering committee consisting of the President of the CPC Lynn Cooper, the National Coordinator of CIWA Bill Chedore, Dr. Lynn Shaw PHD and Dr. Mikelle Bryson Campbell PHD.
We have collected a wealth of information through our research and presented it for review, input and recommendations at two different forums. Our initial forum was held in Toronto in November 2015 and the second forum was in March 2016, also in Toronto.
Both forums were attended by invited experts on the issue of pain and on the issue of return to work. These experts included family doctors, occupational therapists, physio therapists, psychologists, pain researches and clinicians, labour representatives, injured workers and insurance specialists.
We are currently compiling all of the information, forum participants’ comments and recommendations. We will be looking at our next steps for developing a working tool kit, which we hope will become a resource for injured workers and family members, medical practitioners, health care providers, employers, trainers in the medical field and insurance providers, including provincial Workers’ Compensation Boards.
Every year, there are over 1000 workers who will die in Canada from worker related injuries or exposure to carcinogens and toxins. There will be close to 1,000,000 workplace injuries, thousands of which will result in workers being afflicted with chronic pain.
It is estimated that 1 in 5 Canadians are dealing with chronic pain. It is also estimated that the yearly cost to the Canadian econommy may be as high as 50 billion dollars or more.
Our hope is that this joint project by CIWA and CPC will produce new and/or improved resources to help injured workers in their desire to return to work and live with a sustainable way to manage their pain.
We will be posting updates as our poject moves forward.
Author: Janet
WSIB critics say spending cuts are ‘devastating’ injured workers
Letter signed by more than 140 doctors, legal clinics, and labour groups, expresses deep concern about injured workers who are increasingly unable to get the treatment their doctors recommend.
By SARA MOJTEHEDZADEHWork and Wealth reporter, The Star
5:00 AM, Fri., June 10, 2016
Dramatic changes to health-care services for injured workers, including a 40 per cent funding drop in rehabilitative treatment and a 30 per cent drop in drug benefit spending, is having a “devastating” impact on some of the province’s most vulnerable citizens, according to a letter obtained by the Star.
The letter, to be delivered Friday to senior Ontario government figures and signed by more than 140 doctors, legal clinics and labour groups, expresses deep concern about injured workers who are increasingly unable to get the treatment their doctors recommend because of significant health-care changes at the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. The letter claims that shift is designed by the board to cut costs at the expense of injured workers.
“We only have one body,” said Indira Rupchand, 56, who hurt her back three years ago on a manufacturing production line. “If we are hurt at work, I think we deserve to be treated with dignity and get the treatment that is recommended. Many times we are railroaded.”
The board has moved away from relying on the medical advice of injured workers’ own doctors in favour of opinions provided by physicians in specialty clinics contracted by the WSIB, according to the letter. The board has doubled its spending on such clinics over the past 10 years.
WSIB has responded to criticisms of its health services, including a formal complaint to Ontario’s ombudsman by injured worker advocates, by saying that it has “confidence in the integrity of Ontario’s health-care professionals” and that it “acts quickly to ensure workers receive timely, specialized medical care.”
But critics say specialty clinics’ treatment programs often push injured workers back on the job before they are ready and set unrealistic recovery dates. Workers’ benefits are frequently cut off according to those recovery timelines, without the board ever following up with the worker or their doctor about their health.
“It turns the focus away from health care and toward a date,” said Maryth Yachnin, a lawyer with the Industrial Accident Victims Group of Ontario (IAVGO).
Meanwhile, the board has cut its spending on drug benefits by close to 30 per cent since 2009, according to the letter. Funding for services like physiotherapy and psychological treatment provided by doctors not affiliated with the board also plummeted by 40 per cent between 2005 and 2014. That statistic was obtained by IAVGO through a freedom of information request.
Such rehabilitative services are often vital for real, long-term recovery, Yachnin says, and are frequently recommended by injured workers’ own doctors — only to be ignored by the board.
“(Workers) feel like they are coming up against a wall when they’re trying to get services that will actually help them recover,” she told the Star. “They don’t listen to workers’ doctors and specialists.”
When it comes to the WSIB’s own specialty clinics, the board is “setting the terms and conditions of what the (clinics) reports are providing,” she added. “They set out the specific way they want doctors to frame their answers . . . the answers are generally not as candid as you might see from the workers’ (own) doctors in our experience.”
Questions about the WSIB’s health-care provision have already been raised: as reported by the Star, a Hamilton-area doctor is currently suing the board and one of its private health-services contractors, claiming she was terminated after delivering a medical opinion that did not suit the WSIB.
After injuring her back in 2013, Rupchand says she received just a couple of physiotherapy sessions through one of the WSIB’s specialty clinics before being told to start working again. The stress of working while still injured was the start of a downward spiral, according to the Toronto-area resident who says she has since contemplated suicide as a result of her ordeal, and is currently separated from her kids.
“All this is a systematic thing with injured workers,” said Rupchand, who is helping to organize a day of action on Friday to raise awareness about the issue. “I’ve heard people going through this so many times.”
“It’s causing a lot of stress. I’m a single mother and it’s hard. That’s why I’m still feeling pain and that’s why it’s so important that the WSIB listens to treating doctors,” she added.
“As injured workers, they don’t believe us. I was never believed.”
With files from Jacques Gallant
Ontario doctor’s suit claims pattern of fraud at workplace safety board, Sept. 23/15
This is the letter I just sent to the Globe & Mail. Please feel free to circulate widely to encourage others to write.
Margery
________________________________________
From: flyerwardle@hotmail.com
To: letters@globeandmail.com
Subject: Ontario doctor’s suit claims pattern of fraud at workplace safety board, Sept. 23/15
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2015 18:12:46 -0400
I’d like to express my appreciation and support to Dr. Steinnagel for her courage in speaking out and for standing by her professional medical opinion of the injured worker she assessed.
Our members have been hearing similar complaints from treating physicians and other health care professionals for years. Indeed, many doctors simply refuse at the outset to treat injured workers, telling the patient they find it too frustrating and time-consuming to deal with WSIB. This forces the injured worker to ‘shop around’ for another doctor willing to accept a new, high-maintenance patient, which of course, is very hard to find.
Therefore, I’d like to encourage other doctors and health care professionals who’ve experienced these kinds of difficulties dealing with WSIB to come forward and speak the truth.
In addition, I call upon the WSIB to publicly release data indicating how many diagnoses and prognoses by treating physicians and specialists have been over-ruled by the WSIB’s doctors-for-hire in the past 20 years.
Margery Wardle
Vice President, Northeastern Region
Ontario Network of Injured Workers’ Groups (ONIWG)
Ottawa office: 613-567-5872
Doctor claims wrongful dismissal by WSIB; Lawsuit alleges employer, board wanted MD to partake in ‘fraud’ on worker’s injuries
Jacques Gallant
The Toronto Star, Sept. 23, 2015
A Hamilton-area physician is suing the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board and her former employer for $3.2 million, claiming she was fired when she wouldn’t deliver a medical opinion that suited the WSIB.
Dr. Brenda Steinnagel, 50, is alleging in her statement of claim that she was terminated last April after the WSIB repeatedly demanded that her employer, Vaughan-based Workplace Health and Cost Solutions (WHCS), change the medical opinion she wrote on a hospital worker who was claiming benefits after suffering head injuries while trying to restrain a patient.
Steinnagel had concluded in late 2014 that the worker’s emotional issues could be related to his workplace accident, according to the statement of claim. Within two weeks of delivering her opinion, she alleges the WSIB requested clarification.
After further review, which included speaking with the worker’s family doctor, Steinnagel said she reached the same result in her medical opinion, but “the WSIB continued to resist her conclusion,” according to the statement, filed in Toronto Superior Court in July.
“The defendants WSIB and WHCS tried to force Dr. Steinnagel to participate in a fraud upon the public,” the statement alleges.
“In a desperate effort to reduce claims paid out, WSIB and WHCS have been conspiring to deny legitimate claims in a shocking display of arrogance and corruption. They pressured Dr. Steinnagel over a period of months to reverse her medical opinion on a high-cost case. When she refused, she was fired.”
None of the allegations has been proven in court. WSIB and WHCS have not yet filed statements of defence, but both told the Star they deny any wrongdoing and will be moving to strike much of Steinnagel’s claim in court on Oct. 26.
“The claims she has made about improper conduct are without merit,” said WHCS lawyer Greg McGinnis, calling Steinnagel “an apparently disgruntled former employee.”
WSIB spokeswoman Christine Arnott told the Star that “there is no truth to Dr. Steinnagel’s allegations and we deny acting wrongfully in any way. The WSIB will vigorously defend the lawsuit.”
Steinnagel, a married mother of a 3-year-old daughter, began working at WHCS in September 2012 as an external medical consultant to the WSIB, according to her statement of claim. Before that, she had been doing much of the same work within the WSIB since 2003, where she says in her statement she received promotions for her “excellent work.”
During her time at WHCS, where she went to work after her maternity leave ended, the company had a contract with the WSIB to provide medical consultants to assess workers claiming benefits for workplace injuries.
Steinnagel says in her statement that she received a positive performance review while working at WHCS, and was even asked to do quality-assurance checks on other medical consultants at the company.
But she alleges things became tense in early 2015 when the WSIB continued to refuse her medical opinion on the hospital worker, who isn’t named in the statement of claim. She alleges that at one point, WHCS’s medical director authored a different opinion with her name on it, and that she was “coerced” into signing it, but she refused.
She alleges one superior questioned whether she “valued the WSIB contract,” according to the statement, while another asked a human resources representative to “put pressure” on Steinnagel to reverse her opinion.
“Throughout January and February 2015, WSIB and WHCS continued to try different tactics to get Dr. Steinnagel to change her opinion about the hospital worker,” the statement alleges.
“It was a relentless campaign to question every aspect of Dr. Steinnagel’s work and challenge her entire approach to the case.”
The statement alleges that WHCS ultimately provided a medical opinion to the WSIB from a different doctor that arrived at the opposite conclusion reached by Steinnagel, “thereby providing WSIB with the false and fraudulent opinion it needed to deny the hospital worker his benefits.”
Steinnagel further alleges that she was suddenly told she had to do more work on site, though she said her superiors knew she had a young daughter at home, as well as to work more closely with the medical director.
In an email apparently sent by WHCS president Yvonne Chan on April 2 – a copy of which was sent to the Star by Steinnagel’s lawyer – Steinnagel is informed that a WSIB official verbally confirmed that “WHCS would suffer the consequence of the contract being taken away if we do not remove you from our roster.”
The email further says: “As a result, WHCS has no choice but to abide by WSIB’s request and thus the termination of your employment with WHCS.”
The copy of Chan’s email includes an email apparently sent to her by Dr. Dybesh Regmi at the WSIB on March 26, saying the WSIB had expected Steinnagel would not be reviewing any more files.
“And again now we are here with another issue,” the email says. “Until this issue is resolved we may have to stop allowing WHCS to take on any more files.”
Speaking to the Star this week, Steinnagel said: “The right thing needs to be done. I think to be asked to take an opposing stance in the face of that being my medical opinion is a challenge, and I don’t think that does anyone any favours.”
How do we perceive ourselves after a disability?
AUGUST 24, 2015 A Great Workers Compensation Article, By Greg Snider
The first article in a series examining how to make a real Workers Compensation Program. This article takes a look at who should administer.
Check it out.
How do we perceive ourselves after a disability?
Operation Maple
Here’s a video of Peter Page & Richard Hudon’s bike treck to Ottawa …
Injured Workers Cycle for Awareness
Spiralling Down
Hi
Article published by OHS Canada (Canada’s Occupational Health & Safety Magazine) on June 25, 2015 quoting John McKinnon & Steve Mantis
Spiralling Down
for the full study CPHA 2014 v. 105, Sep/Oct 2014
New research suggests that seriously injured workers tend to have shorter lifespans and that those who are permanently impaired following workplace incidents in their younger years have the highest risk of dying early.
Manitoba, Bill 35 – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Here’s a major progressive initiative from The Legislative Assembly of Manitoba.
Worksafe BC – neither working nor safe for injured workers with chronic pain — study
Some injured workers suffering from chronic pain in B.C. have been so traumatized by the way WorkSafe BC (previously known as the Workers Compensation Board or WCB) treats them that they have attempted suicide.
It is bad enough to be injured at work and left with crippling chronic pain. But if that happens to you in B.C., you could also be subjected to long bureaucratic delays, disbelief from government staff and doctors, and disrupted income and psychological trauma on top of your initial injury, a study released this week suggests. Some of the injured workers profiled in the new policy brief from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (“Work injuries, chronic pain and the harmful effects of WorkSafeBC/WCB compensation denial”, by Dr. Cecil Hershler and Kia Salomons, MSc.) were so hurt by their post-injury experience with WorkSafe that four of nine considered suicide and two made suicide attempts, Dr. Hershler told me in a June 8 conversation.
Hershler, an expert on chronic pain with 30 years experience, told me that the way WorkSafe BC responds to injured workers suffering chronic pain had “a truly catastrophic impact” on their lives.
The stories the nine injured workers (all patients treated by Hershler) told the investigators that their post-injury experience with WorkSafe included off-and-on payment of compensation, or no compensation at all, over long periods of time; long delays between initial termination of payments and the completion of appeals; lack of income and depletion of financial resources; mental health problems (including suicide attempts) and other health issues aggravated by the claims experience; wrestling with disbelief on the part of employers and WCB; frequent change of claims managers; undue pressure to engage in job search, even when injuries should have ruled out such requirements, and being cut off from the WorkSafe BC payments they were entitled to. One patient in the study had been struggling to get the chronic pain recognized for two decades. (continued)
Offensive Cartoon in Ottawa Citizen Newspaper …
The following cartoon was printed in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper.
This is a response from Karl Crevar, which he sent to the newspaper and many others throughout Ontario and Canada:
Your cartoon shows an injured worker on a wheelchair not wanting to be healed because he is getting workers’ compensation.
Only the jerks would laugh. Do you realize how offensive this is?
Other media have covered the sad truth about injured workers, surely your paper is aware of the number of injured workers out there and the 250 fatalities that happen from work every year. To suggest that injured workers are “fakers” is outrageous and borders on slander. I would suggest you do some investigative journalism instead. Talk to the real injured workers and their families. Find out the truth about the pain, the poverty and the stigma. Satire is important but offending peoples’ human rights is not only insensitive, it is illegal.
Yours sincerely,
Karl Crevar