Many of the injured workers with disabilities who participated in this study were satisfied with the medical care they received for their injuries, but at least six others expressed dissatisfaction with their medical treatment. ^[43] Three to five experienced years of treatments they felt were ineffective before receiving more effective medical care. Three to five were still searching for satisfactory treatments.

“They tried Cortisone, they tried physiotherapy, they tried all kinds of gizmos and gadgets, but nothing worked. They just caused me even more pain. I had no faith in the medical community after that.”

“[Improper treatment] might have been part of the problem. They’re not as good doctors in [small town] than you’d receive in Winnipeg, or even Thompson.”

Three to five believed their injuries and the resulting disabilities were aggravated by following doctors’ advice that the best thing to do was continue to work—often with pain killers.

“I kept saying to the doctor ‘I can’t keep doing this…’ but he said ‘just keep sticking it out until you can’t take it anymore.’ I damn near took him by the throat [and said] ‘I can’t take it anymore now.’”

“It kept getting worse and worse, but they [doctors] kept saying ‘keep working, it’s the best thing for you.’ They gave me all kinds of pain killers. I think that screwed it up worse.”

Three to five participants felt they were discharged from hospitals prematurely and/or without appropriate assistance.

Persons with a broad range of injuries told of medical problems, but more than half were persons with extended onset, soft tissue, and/or back injuries. At least six participants continued to experience significant pain many years after their injuries. Three to five had attended pain clinics outside of Manitoba, but none found major relief from their symptoms at these clinics.

Two participants in one city outside Winnipeg indicated that they experienced long delays in seeing their family physicians, and felt that the local hospital emergency department did not provide thorough diagnosis and treatment of non-life threatening injuries. A participant in another city outside Winnipeg reported that injured workers in that city have better access to some kinds of treatment than persons who experience non-workplace injuries.

More than half of the participants outside Winnipeg had to travel to Winnipeg for at least part of their medical treatment. Three to five indicated that this was inconvenient, but remarkably few felt it was an unreasonable burden. One person indicated that seeing a specialist takes longer for persons outside Winnipeg because Winnipeg residents are often able to get appointments on short notice when other patients cancel appointments.

More than half of the persons who traveled to Winnipeg for medical treatment indicated that their travel expenses were adequately and promptly compensated by the WCB.

Approximately one-half of the 34 study participants were union members at the time of their injuries. Three to five did not expect or seek their union’s assistance in dealing with problems they encountered. For example, one did not seek union assistance because he did not expect to return to his pre-injury occupation. Another did not expect assistance because his union had extremely limited staff resources.

The majority of study participants who belonged to unions at the time of their injuries expected their unions to be of assistance, and most of them sought this assistance. Two indicated that their unions had prepared appeals for them. (Neither appeal involved vocational rehabilitation issues.) One of these injured workers also reported that his union had assisted him in obtaining other financial assistance when his WCB benefits were concluded/terminated. ^[44]

At least six of the participants who sought assistance from their unions felt that they did not receive adequate support. One participant reported that the telephone messages he left for his union’s workers’ compensation specialist were returned by a person who was not helpful. Three to five participants reported they were dissatisfied with the attention their unions gave to various return to work problems they experienced, most commonly about employers not providing satisfactory accommodations.

One person indicated that he was happy with support provided by his union local, but dissatisfied with the union’s national office. Another participant reported that she sought her union local’s assistance in trying to get an available light duty position, but later discovered that her request for the position had never been forwarded to the union head office by her union local.

“There was a union rep who was [less than five] numbers away from getting that [light duty] job. If I’d got that job, he would have been [one number further] away, so I knew I’d never get that job.”

Other participants indicated that their unions were struggling with the tension between seniority and duty to accommodate.

“A lot of people don’t know about it [duty to accommodate]. The union doesn’t want to use it because it’s pitting one member against the next. This guy here with twenty years is going to put in a grievance against this other guy [with a disability and only ten years seniority]. I can’t blame them [union members]. They need to know more…It causes major friction in the membership. They [union] are kind of scared to get into it, because of the friction and shit it’s going to cause. But it’s going to have to happen because we have so many people who are getting screwed.”

One participant felt that his union did not vigorously support his efforts to obtain an alternative position with his pre-injury employer because the union did not want to jeopardize the contract negotiations in progress with his employer. Another attributed his lack of support to his previous criticism of his union. One participant described how his own union did not support him, but that another union provided valuable assistance.

Well over half of the study participants had not accessed any services provided by agencies that provide employment assistance to persons with disabilities. Two participants said they had difficulty thinking of themselves as “persons with disabilities.”

“I’ve often wondered what might be available to me. I have a permanent impairment, but I don’t look at myself as being ‘disabled.’ When I think of ‘disabled,’ I think of somebody in a wheelchair, or somebody who can’t function on a daily basis. I get around okay, but I have some limitations, so I guess I am disabled. One of the reasons I never looked at support groups for people with disabilities—in fear, I guess—that people might look at me and say ‘you’re not disabled’ because they don’t know the nature of my injury.”

More than half of the small number of study participants who were aware of these agencies had utilized at least one agency. Three to five participants subsequently accessed agencies after learning about them during interviews for this study. More than half of the participants who were aware of community agencies said they did not learn about them from the WCB.

“All of the organizations I’ve ever been involved with have all been because of word-of-mouth from someone I knew, or just throwing the net out, like looking in the Yellow Pages. The only reason I found out about [community agency] was because I was working at another non-profit organization and we got pamphlets from other services. But if I hadn’t been working in that place, I might never have found out about them. Comp certainly never told me.”

In general, participants’ comments about a handful of agencies were positive.

“[Community agency] has self-help groups, and there are other organizations that help people with [disability]. But I haven’t used them, because I don’t want to use up their resources. I’d rather use up the Workers Compensation Board’s resources. But the [community agency] helps me, and it also helps my [spouse]. It’s good to have contact with other people who are having the same troubles.”

“I have good things to say about them [community agency]. First of all, they really listened to me. They understood what I was saying about my disability, and my fears about re-entering the work force.”

The same participant also appreciated the follow-up assistance the agency provides after persons become employed.

“Once you’re placed with an employer, they [agency] stay active. If there’s anything that needs to be adjusted or any problems, they’re there to help out. They don’t cut the strings and say ‘see ya’.”

One disability-specific agency was identified as being very helpful by three to five participants with that disability.

Worker Advisor Office

Three to five participants had sought advice and assistance from the three provincial government Worker Advisor Offices in Winnipeg, Brandon, and The Pas. More than half were relatively pleased with the services they received.

“I had a representative from the Worker Advisor. He represented me really well. He made a really good speech [at hearing]. He was the best person I had on my side since I’ve been dealing with WCB.”

One participant outside Winnipeg who was not satisfied with the assistance he received from the Worker Advisor Office said:

“When they [WCB] are trying to force you into something or push the situation, there’s really no place you can go for any decent advice, where there’s somebody who can tell you ‘yes, you have to do what they’re saying,’ or ‘no, you don’t.’ Or tell you what the outcome is if you don’t do what they [WCB] want you to do.”

Two participants who were originally pleased with the assistance they received were later disappointed because they felt that the Worker Advisor Office ended their assistance before the issue was fully resolved. In one case, the participant’s appeal was still in progress when the Worker Advisor Office declined to provide further assistance.

Private Advocates

Three to five Winnipeg participants described having some contact with an agency which provides assistance preparing appeals for injured workers on a fee-for-service basis.

Very few participants were aware of injured workers’ groups in Winnipeg and other parts of Manitoba.