Download Jasna Kostic

Jasna Kostic
Jared Grogan
English 1020
April 19, 2013
Assignment 3
Depression Caused by Compensation Companies
Being in physical pain is hard, but being in physical pain due to a job injury, and
not being able to work is even harder because of the worry that you will not be able to
pay your upcoming bills. Thankfully there are organizations that are there to protect a
person with a work related injury, and give these individuals the medical treatment
needed in order to get better. There is just one problem, today these organizations are less
interested in helping such individuals heal, and more interested in forcing them to go
back to work when they cannot. The harassment that comes from these organizations can
cause clinical depression in the injured worker, making their life and coping ability even
harder.
In order to fully understand this topic we must first look at what depression is
along with physical/organic pain. The definition and symptoms of depression given by
Depression Hurts website are as follows:
“Depression is a serious medical condition with a variety of
emotional, cognitive, physical and behavioural symptoms.
Emotional symptoms can include sadness, loss of interest in things
you once enjoyed, thoughts of death or suicide, feelings of guilt or
worthlessness, trouble concentrating or making decisions, and
anxiety. Physical symptoms can include aches and pains,
restlessness, lack of energy, and changes in weight, appetite, or
sleep patterns.”
Now that we know the meaning of depression, it is important to understand what the
definition of pain is, more specifically physical pain. Medterms defines pain as being:
“An unpleasant sensation that can range from mild, localized
discomfort to agony. Pain has both physical and emotional
components. The physical part of pain results from nerve
stimulation. Pain may be contained to a discrete area, as in an
injury, or it can be more diffuse, as in disorders like fibromyalgia.
Pain is mediated by specific nerve fibres that carry the pain impulses
to the brain where their conscious appreciation may be modified by
many factors.”
Since we are familiar with both the definitions of both terms, it is very important
to start by saying that there are people abusing the compensation system and faking the
severity of the injury or the injury all together, it is still a very low number. These people
are taking away the resources from a seriously injured worker and such people should be
sent back to work and cut of from the compensation. However there are thousands of
people with work related injuries, many of whom are no longer capable of working
because of the severity of the injuries. Yet the insurance/ compensation companies treat
these people as if they were robots without souls by harassing them, denying medical
treatment, cutting or stopping their pay and force them to go back to work or to school to
be trained for another job.
Focusing on one compensation company that is very well known in Canada and to
my, known as WSIB or Worker Safety Insurance Board, a company that was once run by
the government, seems to only care about getting their bonus, which they get if they send
a person back to work, rather than focus on helping treat their clients. So how does an
injured worker become depressed while being on compensation? The answer is simple,
by having to deal with all of the problems that compensation creates. The policy for cooperation has been created so that there is no way out other than doing exactly what you
are told to do without any complaints or questions. While the policy seems difficult to
understand, I have had the opportunity to have the policy explained to be by a lawyer,
Peter Giuditsu, in “simple” English “If you think that you cannot do what is being asked
of you, you are not co-operating, if your family doctor or specialist writes a letter that you
cannot do such a task, you are not co-operating”. This results in pay cuts, partially or
completely, for long periods of time or even permanently. For example, three doctors
wrote letters to WSIB concerning my mother, stating that she is not capable of going
back to work or go to school because of her physical injuries and clinical depression. This
resulted in WSIB claiming that my mother was not co-operating and that her pay would
be cut to $80 a week.
Taking a moment to look at what depression means, and what types of treatment
are available is very important. Lets begin with who it affects, Dr. Andrew Weil states
“Depression is one of the most common types of mental disorders, affecting about 340
million people worldwide. Interestingly, about half of all cases of depression go
undiagnosed and untreated, yet depression is the most treatable form of mental illness.
Depression occurs in all age groups, social classes and cultures. It is far more common in
women, affecting 25 percent of women versus about 10 percent of men. Depression can
be triggered by a sudden loss or sad event” (Wiel, Andrew) Simply said, realistically
anyone can become depressed, since there are different severities and forms of
depression, the CDC created a list of the most depressed people and the list clearly states
that “individuals unable to work or unemployed” are among the most depressed. Seeing
as how pay cuts can occur at any time while on disability, and already feeling helpless
because of not having the ability to go back to work, one can see how clinical depression
can be triggered in an injured person.
What are the symptoms of depression? The most common and heard about
symptoms include change in appetite, and sleep (depression can result in little to no sleep
as well as very little food intake), a sullen mood, loss of interest and energy, inability to
concentrate and feeling hopeless, anxiety or guilt. People with depression tend to keep to
them selves, due to all the symptoms, and this can hurt their friends and family,
especially if the person has not admitted to feeling depressed.
Treatments include different forms of therapy, medication, and other treatments
that are not as popular. Compensation is required to provide treatment for individuals
who are clinically depressed; these treatments usually include seeing a psychologist once
or twice and in some instances seeing a psychiatric. Having been to both with injured
individuals as a translator, I can account for what these therapies entail, the psychologist
is given a set of questions that he or she has to ask every patient, and does not give very
much helpful advice. If a person complains about their pain to the psychiatric, he replies
“I can not help you with that” and then asks “what do you want me to do for you?”, then
he or she writes out a prescription with about three or four medications and then the
session is over, all in a time span of 5-10 minutes.
Usually the compensation does not want to waste too much money on medical
professionals as they are extremely expensive, and for that reason they request family
doctors or any doctor the client is seeing to prescribe antidepressants, along with sleeping
pills. Cymbolta is one of the most popular antidepressants on the market today, this one
drug has over 20 side effects, including “Abnormal mood (mania), which may include
greatly increased energy, severe trouble sleeping, racing thoughts, talking more or faster
than usual, and reckless behaviour…confusion, problems concentrating, or memory
problem...seizures or convulsions” (Cymbalta). Antidepressants are not guaranteed to
work, and mixing them with the pain medication for injuries (which are usually narcotics,
such as morphine) can create even more complications. Seeing it first hand, a person on
antidepressants can look emotionless, pale, and as if though they are high.
A survey done in Thunder Bay Ontario of permanently injured workers concluded
the following statistics: “71 per cent live under the poverty line, 42 per cent receive either
Ontario Works or Ontario Disability Support Program support, 18 per cent receive WSIB
benefits, 15 per cent are working, 63 per cent are depressed, 15 per cent have
contemplated suicide”. This is an extremely scary finding only 18 percent receive WSIB
benefits, yet 63 percent are depressed. This is hard to picture because WSIB receives
funding not only from the government but they charge the injured worker’s employer in
order to “pay” the injured worker.
WSIB has their own policy which covers depression, it is called Psychotraumatic
disability, and the policy states “A worker is entitled to benefits when
disability/impairment results from a work-related personal injury by accident.
Disability/impairment includes both physical and emotional disability/impairment”
(WSIB). Psychotraumatic disability is a term coined by WSIB, and is not actually a
medical term. The company has another policy which is for traumatic stress, and this is
covering issues such as seeing a death at a workplace, however WSIB does not accept
claims if a person developed traumatic stress overtime due to harassment or anything else
that can cause depression. This policy, nor does a policy exist, where an individual can
make a claim for being harassed or mistreated by WSIB workers, resulting in the
development of depression.
With these statistics comes the question why should workers with organic injuries
not be harassed, and instead be offered medical help? The answer is simple, depression is
a serious issue, it is in fact a disorder, and preventing it in anyone 5 or 95 years old
should be taken seriously. When it comes to someone who suffers from physical pain due
to a job injury, it should be taken even more seriously because this person already has
way too much to deal with, and it is extremely easy to trigger depression in them. The
issue is that compensation companies, such as WSIB do not care about that, the most
important thing to them is to keep the money being given to injured workers stays within
the company and that the payout is as little as possible. With policies that protect mainly
the compensation companies, it gives them the right to treat workers any way they would
like, such as forcing people with extreme injuries to endure long hours at school for retraining, or to work again.
WSIB is notorious for being extremely rude to their clients, in meetings lawyers
and representatives are not allowed to talk, if for example a family member accompanies
the injured worker to a meeting, they are not allowed to speak and can be kicked out of
the room for speaking. Their newest form of harassment is extremely cruel, while
translating a letter for an injured worked for WSIB, I learned that “case adjucators” with
little or no medical background are now starting to tell individuals who are attending
WSIB’s school program when to take their medications, even though the doctor has
clearly stated when the medication needs to be taken. These same adjucators are calling
specialists and moving appointment dates, which the injured worker wait up to a year,
without his or her permission, and they are screaming and yelling at the injured workers
in the meetings until the worker feels ill. They are also not allowing people with sitting
and other restrictions to stand up, walk around or anything that their doctor says they
have to do. It is simple to see how a person with physical injuries being treated in such a
way can develop depression in a very short period of time, after all a person can only take
so much, and the worst part is that there is not anyone that can stop these compensation
companies. In the case of WSIB the government will not do anything as they only hold
40% of the company.
So how should depression be treated in injured workers? The first step would be
to stop belittling these individuals and not making them feel worthless. WSIB and any
other compensation workers should act like they care about the injured worker and their
health, even if they do not. The second step would be to provide professional help such as
more sessions with psychologists who are going to actually give advice and coping tips
instead of asking questions provided to them by the compensation company. Lastly
getting the right treatment for the physical injuries might be the most important method
of them all, why? Because a person in pain is more likely to become and stay depressed.
By providing the medical help needed for the physical injuries can not only make the
individual healthier, it can help them return to work and feel accomplished and as if they
are not worthless. This will also help the compensation companies as they will not have
to pay compensation for the injured worker until the age of 65.
It is obvious that ill treatment can create mental disorders and that compensation
companies are fully capable of achieving that in a huge number of injured workers. By
acting the way that compensation companies were created and expected to, so many
complications could be stopped, a lot of people on disability could possibly feel better not
just physically but mentally as well, and be able to work and live a normal and happy life.