Worker advocates raise concerns over "deeming"
REGINA (Canadian OH&S News)
Severely injured workers in Saskatchewan receiving heavy doses of
pain medication are being rushed back to work by the province’s workers’
compensation board before they’re ready, injured worker advocates argue.
Two such advocates in the province, Tom Brown and Jim Taphorn, say they
are taking up the issue with the provincial government and the
Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) and have achieved mixed
results. Certain appeals to the three-member WCB Board have been
successful, but the WCB has not revised its policy overall, Taphorn
says.
At issue is the WCB’s practices related to the “deeming” of claim
recipients who are taking pain medication — opioids such as morphine and
oxycodone — for work-related injuries.
Deeming is a common element in many compensation boards’ return-to-work
programs. For instance, an injured worker may not be able to return to
his former position, but he may be declared physically capable of doing
other work. If such work is available and the injured worker refuses to
take it, his wage-loss benefits could be reduced.
Prematurely deeming a heavily medicated worker fit for duty has
financial and workplace safety implications, argues Brown, who has
represented claimants in appeals before the WCB Board.
Someone who is heavily medicated may experience impairment sufficient
enough to endanger his own safety or that of others, Brown argues.
“Aside from the fact that they’re heavily medicated, they’re severely
injured,” he adds.
Such a worker could take an unjustified financial hit, through a
reduction in benefits, if he refuses to work, Brown charges.
Five workers win appeals, benefits
restored
In the last year, at least five separate heavily medicated workers
who had been deemed ready to work have won WCB appeals, resulting in
full restoration of their benefits, Brown states. In three similar
cases, he adds, appeals are now being prepared, which may ultimately
result in costly back payment of benefits.
The WCB disagrees with the argument that it is incorrectly deeming
heavily medicated workers as fit for duty, says Mitchell Scott,
executive assistant to WCB chief executive officer Peter Federko. “Any
worker who is not satisfied with [a] WCB decision, about his or her
functional impairment and earning capacity, can appeal to have the
decision reviewed,” Scott adds.
Should a claimant experience impairment caused by medication prescribed
for a work-related injury, this is accounted for in WCB decisions about
earning capacity and functional impairment, Scott reports.
Brown says he’s frustrated that even when medicated workers have won
their WCB appeals, the decisions don’t directly acknowledge that
impairment could be a safety concern.
In one such case, a former insulator who had been deemed capable of
performing light to moderate work had that finding overturned. In the
decision last March, the WCB Board reversed the deeming and noted the
worker had not achieved “reasonable control” over his back pain. The
worker had stated the effects of his pain medication rendered him
totally disabled, an argument that the board did not weigh in on.
In a July 10 letter to Saskatchewan Advanced Education, Employment and
Labour Minister Rob Norris (the minister also responsible for the WCB),
Brown suggests the WCB is showing a “wanton and reckless disregard for
the lives and safety of workers.” He has not yet received an official
response.
Lisa Danyluk, a communications consultant with the ministry, says a
formal reply to Brown is forthcoming. The ministry, she adds, is
deferring comment on the subject of heavily medicated workers to the
WCB.
