Ontario officers have guaranteed PTSD benefits. Now the poli

Suicides among OPP officers are higher than on-duty deaths. Moreover, OPP does not formally keep track of the number of officers that have taken their own lives.

Ontario officers have guaranteed PTSD benefits. Now the poli

Postby Thomas » Fri Aug 06, 2021 7:16 am

Ontario officers have guaranteed PTSD benefits. Now the police brass wants to change that

1,529 officer PTSD claims between 2016 and 2020 cost Ontario more than $134M

A proposal to claw back benefits for hundreds of Ontario police officers too psychologically traumatized to work would force many of them to hide their illnesses to stay on the job — which would put officers, their colleagues and potentially the public at risk, say police unions and veteran law enforcement officers.

The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP) has proposed changes to a 2016 provincial law that guarantees first responders no longer have to prove their psychological injuries are the result of a single event at work.

Between January 2016 and November 2020, 1,529 claims were made for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among officers in Ontario at a cost of $134 million, according to the OACP. Over half of the claimants were still drawing benefits two years after their injuries.

The proposed changes include creating a formal process for police departments to dispute officers' PTSD claims and a reduction in the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) benefits for officers sidelined by operational stress, which would reduce the benefit to a percentage of their full pay, similar to long-term disability.

The idea behind the proposed changes, OCAP said in its resolutions, is to create "incentive for an employee to return to work" and reduce the growing cost of caring for hundreds of traumatized officers because "the current status quo cannot be sustained from both a financial and non-financial point of view."

'I yearn to go back to the streets': injured officer

The resolutions have been met with disbelief and disgust by many in the rank and file. Many didn't want to speak on the record for fear of reprisals from their colleagues and a police brass that many see as out of touch.

"Incentivize me by cutting pay? I don't know how that would possibly work," said Steve Stokan, a constable with the London Police Service who has tried unsuccessfully to return to work three times since his PTSD diagnosis in 2016.

"I yearn to go back to the streets. It's sad, I feel guilty, and terrible and shamed that [my colleagues] have to carry my load while I'm off trying to heal, and it bothers me every day," said Stokan.

"Each time I return, my symptoms come back with greater ferocity, and I am now working on accepting what has occurred to me and move on with my life."

With court time, paid duty and overtime, Stokan used to make the Ontario sunshine list, earning more than $100,000 a year as a police constable. Since his diagnosis, he now takes home $62,000 in WSIB benefits.

He estimates being off work costs him roughly $25,000 a year, and with three sons in university, his wife has had to get a second job to help pay the family's bills.

Stokan said if the OACP proposal becomes part of Ontario's legislative agenda, it could be disastrous for the mental health of hundreds of officers who have been psychologically traumatized on the job.

"Officers wouldn't go off work. They wouldn't disclose. They wouldn't get help. We would have situations that occur that would be unhealthy for the officers and society in general.

"It's going to force them back to work sooner when they're not healed," he said. "They'll crash the second time. On my third failed return to work, I became very suicidal. I was devastated that I was losing my career."

Unions say move will have 'tragic effects'

Police unions say the proposal is "repulsive" and a step backwards from decades of progress that labour leaders and mental health advocates have made in trying to break the stigma around mental illness among officers, recognizing their professions make them far more prone to mental illness than the general population.

"These amendments seem to want to undo a lot of that work," said Mark Baxter, president of the Police Association of Ontario, a labour organization representing some 25,000 uniformed officers and almost 12,000 civilian employees in 46 associations.

"If you're cutting salary from someone who is vulnerable, who is dealing with mental health issues, now they're going to struggle to provide for their family — that's just an enormous amount of unnecessary stress," said Baxter.

"I think that's repulsive and disgusting in light of everything we know about PTSD and operational stress injuries.

"We already have a high incidence of police officer suicides in this province, and I think this is going to have tragic effects."

In 2018, nine deaths by suicide happened among serving and retired Ontario police officers, according to a 2019 report by the Ontario Office of the Chief Coroner.

A 2018 report published by the Centre for Additiction and Mental Health (CAMH) said police are more likely to exhibit suicidal behaviour, with higher rates of suicidal ideation and planning for municipal, provincial and RCMP compared to the general population.

The report also said Canadian officers are three to five times more likely to report symptoms of mental illness compared to the general population, and one in three has mental health symptoms in the clinical diagnostic range for PTSD.

OACP president on pay issue

While unions and officers say the reduction in post-injury pay would further traumatize officers, OACP president Gary Conn, Chatham-Kent's police chief, appeared to contradict himself, first saying the association isn't proposing a reduction in pay for injured officers, then saying it would.

"I would say there has been some miscommunication, some misunderstanding in regards to the word 'incentive,'" said Conn.

"There's no pay cut," he told CBC News. "No cuts to the benefit neither."

Conn said OACP is proposing to gradually reduce the money sidelined officers receive, to 85 per cent of their full salary while they're off duty healing from their injuries, and then gradually ramping their pay up again as they return to full-time work.

"What we're trying to do is enhance the services that [injured officers] are being provided, or lack thereof.

"Hopefully we can clarify that when we get all the parties to the table," he said. "I think I talked about a graduated, stepped entitlement that would be a more accurate representation and not necessarily an incentive."

OACP is asking for police, firefighter and paramedic unions as well as officials from CAMH, police services boards and municipalities to meet at an unspecified date to discuss the proposal and recommend legislative changes to the Ontario government.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/o ... -1.6119084
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Why is Ontario trying to force mentally injured cops back to

Postby Thomas » Fri Aug 06, 2021 7:22 am

Why is Ontario trying to force mentally injured cops back to work?

When Bruce Kruger walks into a restaurant, he always requests a table near the wall, where he can sit with his back against it, facing the room.

It’s just one of the many coping measures the Bracebridge retiree, a former OPP detective inspector, manages living with post-traumatic stress disorder.

It took years to get that diagnosis. Kruger spent three decades as a cop experiencing multiple traumatic events. He shot and killed an escaped inmate poised to kill a fellow officer, was hit by a car driven by a suspect, witnessed a father and son drown and was first to the scene of his friend, murdered OPP Const. Richard Verdecchia.

Three months before retiring in 1999, Kruger came to terms with the fact that he was struggling mentally and retired early. Policing culture didn’t allow for conversations about mental health then, he said, and officers didn’t talk about what they saw because it was considered weak. Blood, death, trauma — that’s all part of the job, he and many others were told.

In 2002, he asked the OPP for help and was denied because he was retired.

Eventually he found support through the Canadian Armed Forces and in the years since, the battle to have operational stress injuries — as police call them — recognized and properly treated has been ongoing.

“I really push the envelope because no one else will,” he said.

At its June 2021 general meeting, the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police passed two resolutions to the workers' compensation system citing “systemic issues” with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

The changes were framed to “better support their members” and maintain “the operational and fiscal integrity of police organizations.”

As Kruger puts it, the changes are a “highly ill-conceived resolution that can’t be tolerated.”

“What they’re communicating to the injured officers is basically, we don’t trust you and we think you’re milking the system,” said Dr. Jonathan Douglas, a Barrie-based psychologist who works with Badge of Life Canada treating first responders.

In his experience, the culture of policing and the culture of WSIB is often at odds with psychology. Despite that relationship improving in recent years, he said this latest development shows it has “really hit a low point.”

In 2016, Douglas consulted on legislation that marked a turning point in the discussion: PTSD diagnosed in first responders was finally recognized as work-related, making available WSIB benefits and resources.

That created a logjam, he explained, as the number of first responders who came forward acknowledging their struggles increased.

“As stigma started to go down,” he said, “lo and behold, the number of claims started to increase.”

Then came the pandemic and the various mental health-related issues it triggered. Douglas expects that to increase the number of claims in the years ahead. “OACP is looking at these numbers and are horrified by them,” he said.

The status quo is a “burden on taxpayers” because of escalating costs and delays in adjudication and appeals, OACP said, claiming it has increased stress for employees and delayed their return to work.

Douglas takes issue with the language being used to communicate the changes. “They literally used the word ‘incentivized,’” he said.

“If someone is making enough money on WSIB, why would they go back? That is the definition of stigma right there.”

Treating a first responder who lives with PTSD is complex, he said. Early on, he often saw people on the eve of retirement — people like Kruger “who can see the finish line and they’re collapsing just before it.”

Now, he sees patients coming forward earlier in their career, desperate for treatment and to return to work, he said. “Work is not only a source of injury,” he explained, “it’s also a source of recovery. It’s part of the rehabilitation.”

The complexity lies in understanding that returning to a job like policing re-exposes you to trauma and a diagnosis like PTSD, cannot be cured, only managed. Sanctuary trauma, he said, is not having the support of your employer, constantly facing obstacles to get and maintain treatment without bullying or harassment.

The proposed changes also include suspended officers, which Kruger thinks is wrong. Those incidents should go through a separate appeals process, he said.

Misconduct that prompts officer suspensions can be attributed to untreated mental injuries, Douglas points out. Tardiness, absence, the effects of alcohol or drug abuse and anger management can all play out on the front lines.

In April 2021, the OPP pledged $12.5 million over three years to hire more mental health support staff for police and their families and Douglas admits he has seen a shift in its approach to mental health.

In a letter to Kruger, the OPP Association described being “deeply disappointed” with OACP’s position saying it reinforces stereotypes about mental health and undoes years of work to better assist those in need.

Mark Baxter, president of the Police Association of Ontario, called the OACP’s position “ludicrous and repulsive.”

“We don't ask someone to remove a cast from a broken leg before it's healed; why would we do the same for an injury that is not physically 'visible?'” Baxter said.

The implications are real. In 2018, nine police officers died by suicide in Ontario, an “unprecedented” number, according to the report it prompted from the Office of the Chief Coroner the following year.

As a result, the coroner now tracks first responder deaths. In 2019, seven police officers died by suicide and, in 2020, four took their lives, according to its preliminary data.

“We need to stop it now before it gets to the government,” Kruger said of the resolutions. “We’re going to create more deaths and more heartache for families.”

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/o ... -1.6119084

https://www.parrysound.com/news-story/1 ... -to-work-/
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