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.

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

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

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?

Here’s a video of Peter Page & Richard Hudon’s bike treck to Ottawa …
Injured Workers Cycle for Awareness