Quote of the day
"Do they have to become a workers' comp expert from Day One to get treatment?"
U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., House Armed Services Committee, about civilian employees wounded while deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan
Denials for Nuke Workers Riddled with Errors, Says Examiner
Despite a federal illness compensation program intended to cover former nuclear workers’ medical expenses, some say they are being denied benefits. And a
Department of Labor claims examiner says claimants should question denials because she found mistakes in 90 percent of the cases she examined. By Steve Andrews, Tampa Bay Online
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Wounded Civilian Employees Getting the Shaft
This is what Mike Helms, a civilian counterintelligence specialist, got for serving his government in Iraq: An armful of shrapnel. Traumatic brain injury that left him changed and damaged the relationships he had before the war. And almost no help in getting the medical treatment he needs. “When you’re so drugged up and so at a loss because you spent two months trying everything you can to get support from the government, you start going, ‘Whatever, I can’t fight this anymore,'” says Helms. By Stephen Losey, Federal Times
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Safety Not a High Priority for Bosses, Report Staffers
A survey commissioned by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, Europe’s largest health and safety professional body, finds that large number of bosses put other business concerns ahead of worker safety, according to their staff. Abeceder (Leeds, U.K.)
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Why ‘Well Notes’? Well, Look at These Numbers
For reasons why U.K. government officials are keen on replacing the so-called “sick-note culture” with a “well-note” program, consider: mental illness caused by work-related stress costs the economy an estimated $16.41 billion and 36 million working days annually. By Derren Hayes, Community Care (U.K.)
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Injury Numbers Prompt Response from Saskatchewan WCB
Having the second-highest workplace injury rate in Canada spurs the province’s Workers’ Compensation Board to set a new, more ambitious target for its five-year-old injury prevention program: zero workplace injuries. By Bruce Johnstone, Regina Leader-Post
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Campaign Trumpets Provincial Injury Prevention Success
A newspaper ad campaign unfolding this week across Nova Scotia is part of the latest social marketing efforts from the province’s Workers’ Compensation Board. The print ads, based on market research showing that less than half of employed Nova Scotians feel they could make their workplaces safer, show blank spaces to signify a dearth of injury reports as a result of injury prevention. Nova Scotia Business Journal
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