OHS Canada October/November 2012

C A N A D A’ S O C C U PAT I O N A L H E A LT H & S A F E T Y M A G A Z I N E O C T O B ER/NOVEMBER 2012

C A N A D A

less is MORE Why one at a time is better than all at once

SWITCHING SIDES

Breaking the silence around transgendered workers

WEARING THIN

Compassion takes a toll on those with a heart

beating the odds Probing the link between job control and diabetes

smooth ride Stair chairs take on sprains and strains

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C A N A D A’ S O C C U PAT I O N A L H E A LT H & S A F E T Y M A G A Z I N E

Features

26

g e n d e r transition

CC AA NN A AD DA A

A New Life

O C T O B ER / N O V E M B E R 2012 Vo l um e 2 8 , N u m b e r 7

Preparing for the return-to-work of transgendered workers involves looking at accommodation, human rights and sensitivity issues from a whole new perspective.

By sabrina nanji

32

m u lt i tasking

Balancing Act Multitasking is a valued trait in the modern workplace, but does it really enhance productivity, or can it put worker safety on the line?

By donalee moulton

26

38

s e c o n dary trauma

Lingering Shadows While post-traumatic stress disorder has been widely discussed, the struggles of those suffering from compassion fatigue remain in the dark.

By jason contant

departments

32

44

S a f e t y G ear

Breath of Life Workers who don respiratory gear as part of their jobs now have the guidance of expanded standards to protect against bioaerosols and infectious agents.

By jason contant

48

e r g o n omics

Smooth Descent New ergonomic tracked stair chairs are helping paramedics on Canada’s West Coast glide down stairwells, reducing the risk of strains and exertions.

38

By greg burchell

Taking Over The Reins

E ditoria l

4

Letters

6

OH &S UP DATE

8

In My Shoes

British Columbia farm injury under wraps; officer fatality spurs call for arms in Alberta; Saskatchewan worker penalized; Manitoba campaign targets youth; gas theft claims Ontario worker; review underway at Prince Edward Island WCB; Newfoundland and Labrador firm fined; and more.

Dis patch e s

Safety education goes retro; shift work linked to obesity in nurses; counselling boosts return-to-work; and more.

CSSE 201 2 profess i o n a l d i r e c t ory product s h o w c a s e ad index / r e a d e r s e rv i c e i n f o

50

h e a lt h watch

in this issue

A recent study out of Toronto has identified low job control as a modifiable risk factor in reducing diabetes among women.

By jean lian

52

Ac c i d e nt Prevention

Seeing the Light Precautions need to be taken when working around lasers, which can cause permanent damage to the eyes and skin.

58

T i m e O ut

Dancing with the pole; guano begone; dead man driving; cast away; and more.

20

24 54 56 57

It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.

– sir winston churchill

www.ohscanada.com

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012

3

EDITORIAL

C A N A D A’ S O C C U PAT I O N A L H E A LT H & S A F E T Y M A G A Z I N E

In My Shoes L

JEAN LIAN jlian@ohscanada.com managing editor jason contant jcontant@ohscanada.com assistant editor greg burchell gburchell@ohscanada.com editorial assistant Sabrina Nanji snanji@ohscanada.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR WILLIAM M. GLENN Hazardous substances EDITOR

ast week, I was standing in line to make payment after filling up at one of those smaller gas stations in Toronto that offers gasoline at a slight discount, but does not offer the convenience of prepayment.

When it was my turn, the attendant asked, “$25?” I had topped up almost a full tank that would have cost me nearly $50. Sweet deal, but that’s not right, I thought to myself. Before I could do the right thing, a man down the line shouted out that it was his pump island.

Sometimes, making a moral decision is easy — even effortless. But I digress.

The point of this editorial is not whether or not I would have succumbed to the attendant’s luring offer of halving my fuel purchase by mistake. Rather, if a lawabiding civilian like myself could be tempted for a split second to shortchange a gas station, how about someone with a decorated rap sheet topping up a sizeable vehicle at a gas station, staffed by a lone attendant on a quiet night?

That was exactly what happened in Toronto on the night of September 15. A man driving a sports utility vehicle took off with more than $110 in fuel, killing 44-year-old Jayesh Prajapati, who tried to stop the driver on his tracks.

This is but the latest in a series of tragedies associated with gas thefts. Last May, a 62-year-old attendant was killed in a gas-and-dash incident in Mississauga, Ontario. In 2005, Grant De Patie was killed over a mere $12 worth of gas in Maple Ridge, British Columbia. It prompted the passing of Grant’s Law, which saw the implementation of a pay-before-pump system in fuel stops across the province.

With another fatality tied to the pumps, Mike Colle, MPP for Eglinton-Lawrence, introduced Jayesh’s Law on September 20 and called for an inquest into the recent deaths of gas station attendants. If passed, the private member’s bill will impose severe penalties on employers who dock attendants’ wages for losses arising from fuel theft, require prepayment before pumping and suspend the drivers’ licenses of those convicted of gas theft.

In this day and age, cash transactions have become the exception rather than the norm. Man landed on the moon more than 40 years ago; surely we have the technology to implement prepayment in all gas stations?

It has been argued the prohibitive costs associated with upgrading pumps impose an undue burden on small or rural retailers and put a dent on walk-in retail.

However, the reality is that many, if not most, gas stations already have prepayment systems in place. As well, the gas-theft fatalities highlighted above occurred not in rural, but densely populated or urban areas. The district municipality of Maple Ridge, where De Patie was killed, has in excess of 70,000 residents, while the Greater Toronto Area boasts a population of 5.6 million.

And if the cost of installing new pumps is a deterrent, how about the value of a human life? Prepaying for gasoline can bolster worker safety by minimizing the amounts of cash in registers, making petrol stations a less lucrative target.

For small businesses that rely on a handful of employees, the sudden loss of a worker can be debilitating as the operation is often built on minimal staffing, with each employee having a direct effect on the business. While it is important to have administrative controls in place to ensure that gas attendants are properly trained in dealing with gas thefts, engineering controls, such as a prepayment system, are a key preventive measure that would eliminate the motivation for such crimes.

It is tragic that Grant’s Law is inked in blood. So too will Jayesh’s Law, if passed.

Just to put it down in writing, I would have done the right thing even if the man had not come forward. But not everyone would, had they been in my shoes.

The man who ran over Prajapati certainly did not.

Jean Lian

4 O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 2 ohs canada

C A N A D A

Vol. 28, No. 7 OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012

ART DIRECTOR anne miron PRINT PRODUCTION MANAGER PRODUCTION MANAGER MARKETING SPECIALIST Circulation Manager

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EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS

DAVID IRETON, Safety Professional, Brampton, Ont. ALLAN JOHNSON, Director of Construction, Hospitality, Oil and Gas, Workers’ Compensation Board of B.C., Vancouver, B.C. Jane Lemke, Program Manager, OHN Certification Program, Mohawk College, Hamilton, Ont. DON MITCHELL, Safety Consultant, Mississauga, Ont. MICHELE PARENT, National Manager, Risk Management and Health and Wellness, Standard Life, Montreal, Que. TERRY RYAN, Workers’ Compensation and Safety Consultant, TRC Group Inc., Mississauga, Ont. DON SAYERS, Principal Consultant, Don Sayers & Associates, Hanwell, N.B. DAVID SHANE, National Director, Health and Safety, Canada Post Corporation, Ottawa, Ont. HENRY SKJERVEN, President, The Skjerven Cattle Company Ltd., Wynyard, Sask.

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Date of issue: OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012

LETTERS

Recent issues of ohs canada and our website, www.ohscanada.com, have provided readers with plenty to chew on.

QUESTION TIME A 78-year-old bulldozer operator was hit by a dump truck in Schomberg, Ontario (the canadian press, September 11) There will be more questions unanswered here as the investigation unfolds. 1. At the victim’s given age, had he ever received any training? 2. Being an “as needed, on call” part-time employee, was he aware of all latest safety procedures/expectations/processes?

3. Given the victim’s age, his reaction time and sense of surroundings might have been impaired. 4. At what age should this type of physical work not be allowed any longer?

Carola Hicks

LOCKING HORNS A labour lockout over the denied request by jail guards to don safety vests before searching for a piece of metal that went missing in a correctional facility in Hamilton, Ontario. (canadian occupational health and safety news, September 10) I am a certified member of the Health and Safety Committee and a correctional officer. I have seen many issues go by the wayside at the expense of correctional officer safety. To put it simply, we (workers in correctional institutions) do not clearly fall into categories under the Health and Safety Act. The Act caters to commercial buildings, factories and construction sites. It is often difficult to find a section under the Act that pertains to “an unsafe condition” in a correctional facility. Most times, the same terms are regurgitated back to the workers (from Ministry of Labour), most commonly, “this is an inherent part of your job.”

Another “cop out” is, “this does not meet the requirements of section .... of

6 O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 2 ohs canada

the H&S Act and therefore, the worker should negotiate with the management to come up with a joint decision at the local level.”

This is often an impossible task if both parties are at opposite sides of an issue. Common ground cannot always be found. In other words, the Ministry of Labour will NEVER interfere with the day-to-day operations of a facility as it creates province-wide precedents.

The issue is once again dumped on the worker. Does the worker do what he/she knows to be unsafe? Or refuse to do the unsafe work and face sanctions (as in the case of the Hamilton correctional officers)? Or in rare occasions, the employer relents (or sees logic) and the work is done in a safe, professional and efficient way.

We like to think the latter would be the way to strive for, but it sure doesn’t seem that way sometimes. In the long run, the work gets done and employees are satisfied that they will go home safely to their families.

Management should understand that we are here to reach the same goals, just in a “SAFE” way. I believe we have earned the right to be referred to as “CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS”.

Not many people would like to take our places in this line of work, but are quickly opinionated. Look at it from our side for a change. Thanks.

Dave

I’m no expert here, but when dealing with contraband and the threat of life safety for the staff as well as the inmates, wouldn’t the plate be considered a potential sharp edged instrument?

I believe the workers exercised their right under the OH&S legislation and further followed the policy of the institution related to searches and when the vests should be worn. In this case, based on the information available, the guards took the right action. To suggest otherwise is putting people at risk.

Rick

It is a safety issue — plain and simple

— no surprise the Ontario government and ministry would see it differently.

Patrick

SILVER LINING The RCMP was ordered to pay $100,000 after an explosive device went off in a Mountie’s hand two years ago. (canadian occupational health and safety news, August 27) This is truly a bewildering story as it involves two officers who believed that they had followed the proper instructions, and especially Officer Schooley.

To have such a devastating accident that will impact on his quality of life is horrendous and kudos to him for taking positive action in his attempts to change training procedures. Instead of taking the path of “woe is me” or using PTSD as an excuse for extended sick leave, he appears to be getting on with his objectives and life. Wish you every success with getting the changes.

Judith Harrower

SUITING UP Bulletproof vests are now mandatory for patrolling park wardens in Ontario. (canadian occupational health and safety news, July 23) It’s the OSH Act which prescribes that the park wardens are provided with personal protective equipment. The ministry has done something to protect the wardens who, like police officers, are entering situations that may pose a hazard to their safety.

However, I question the adequacy of this level of protection. For officer safety to be a priority in Ontario parks and for the ministry to proactively improve the safety situation for them, we must realize that park wardens need to be trained on and issued firearms for their own and campers protection.

The issue of rowdy campers does oc-

cur and more frequently than desired, but the real potential for serious danger to campers and our park wardens is from aggressive bears, which most times can be tranquilized and transferred away from people, but in an emergent situation may have to be shot.

Old Woodsman

Ridiculous! Park Wardens wearing armour sets a tone of confrontation that totally goes against the atmosphere of Ontario families enjoying one of our beautiful provincial parks. Get the wardens out of their vests and want-to-be police cars and give them some communication skills so they can talk to campers rather than at them.

If in the end a camper does not want to comply, then that’s what the OPP are for. Ontario campers are laughing at these poor kids who are just trying to do their jobs and it is all because of bureaucrats out of touch with reality, again.

John M

A CLOSER LOOK Alberta’s auditor-general slammed the provincial government for not implementing a slew of safety recommendations, which include reviewing the Certificate of Recognition (COR) system, he made in an audit conducted several years ago. (canadian occupational health and safety news, July 23) I am a COR auditor in three different certifying partners. I have developed COR-approved health and safety management programs. The COR program is a good starter point. The incentives are there for companies to sign-up.

With most organizations, you can’t even bid on a job unless you have a COR. The problem with the COR audit process is that it is a basic safety audit tool/protocol. That’s all... Auditors are to follow the protocol as it is outlined.

The audit doesn’t dive deep into the health and safety programs themselves.

The elements of the COR audit are good... but they aren’t enough. The employers having significant incidents or losses are not the ones that are failing the COR audit. They all seemingly pass the audit based on the protocols. They have the areas, such as training, safe job practices and procedures, preventative

maintenance, [health and safety] policy in their programs.

The problem is that there is no formal audit protocol that goes deep into an organization’s compliance with legislative requirements/laws. The areas identified in the COR process are just the tip of the iceberg.

Yes, a company has a policy and is providing training, but is the training adequate? Appropriate? Fits the organizations work and hazards? Have they adequately identified and controlled the hazards? Are they meeting the individual requirements of each section of the legislation?

I do appreciate all the hard work some organizations place on implementing a COR-approved system. But doing the bare minimum, it won’t stop our workforce from suffering losses. It’s time for organizations to start being proactive instead of reactive...

Rob

I think OH&S officers need to have a better outlook on COR-certified companies. Though it may not be a perfected process, companies who strive to achieve a COR certificate and are doing their best to ensure the safety of their employees, should be commended for that.

All too often, officers voice their opinions that having a COR doesn’t mean much to them. I would argue that the work that goes into getting that certificate means a lot to the employer as well as the employees. It works.

COR is not just a certificate. It is only one form of recognizing an employer’s efforts. Maybe there should be more, just as changing a culture in a work place must take maximum positive reinforcement.

Lisa Milne

RIGHTING WRONGS A Mountie launched her second lawsuit against the RCMP. (canadian occupational health and safety news, July 16) A request was filed some time ago by me to many areas of our government, including the Governor General, on the conduct of officers at all levels in our police departments. The Fifth Estate also addressed the conduct and allegations by females involved in undercover

stings in the RCMP. The internal investigation system in our police and fire departments is a systemic code of silence and cover-ups are a norm in the buddy culture or old boys old girls club (no pun intended to age).

Please be assured as long as I can afford the Internet, the conduct of police officers and firefighters will be kept in the limelight.

Connie Sue Anger aka Kapogianes

It is too bad that the once proud RCMP has been reduced to a disappointing and corrupt police entity. It’s amazing that 150 women have come forward, but I’m sure the numbers are higher.

Somehow, we have to correct this.

Scurvy Dog

BACK TO SQUARE ONE Landmark fines were issued to a company responsible for the deaths of four migrant workers after a swing stage collapsed in Toronto on Christmas Eve of 2009. (canadian occupational health and safety news, July 16) Equating life to a dollar value is futile exercise at best. One question that does deserve an answer, however, is why lay multiple charges only to have them thrown out? Thirty corporate charges — dropped. Twelve charges against the owner — dropped.

So the mountain of money spent on investigations and laying charges likely produced a financial deficit to the province? This decision appears to have sent a clear message to employers that if you have enough money in the bank — safety is just not an issue to worry too much about. It is a risk management issue.

This sets safety back 100 years. Those of us in safety work hard to save lives and make a difference. All that dedication is undone when employers see that the consequences for catastrophic accidents are not as severe as anticipated.

Roger T

Would you like to share a comment?

Send an email to jlian@ohscanada.com.

Letters may be edited for style, grammar and length.

www.ohscanada.com

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012

7

OH&S UPDATE

Icing likely cause of crash Federal — The Transportation Safety

Board of Canada (TSB) has determined that serious carburetor icing likely contributed to the engine failure of a helicopter that crashed late last year, claiming the life of a flight instructor and seriously injuring a student.

On November 28, 2011, the Robinson R22 helicopter crashed about one minute after it took off from the Region of Waterloo International Airport in Breslau, Ontario for a local training flight, an investigation report from the TSB noted on September 5.

Ewan Tasker, the TSB investigator-incharge, says in a statement that there were no pre-impact mechanical failures or system malfunctions that would have contributed to the accident, pointing to ice accumulation as the likely cause of the engine failure. Records also indicate the instructor was licensed and qualified in accordance with existing regulations, as was the helicopter.

On the day of the accident, the helicopter took off from a grassy area with the student pilot in control as part of a basic navigation training exercise. After reaching approximately 60 metres above ground, the instructor told the student to apply carburetor heat.

To alert pilots to the possibility of carburetor ice, the helicopter is equipped with a carburetor air temperature (CAT) gauge, which displays a yellow arc outlining the range of temperatures to be avoided during possible icing conditions. Pilots are instructed to apply carburetor heat as required to keep the CAT out of the yellow arc area.

“The investigation could not determine whether the carburetor heat control was adjusted as required,” the report says, adding the carburetor heat was selected to cold when the helicopter struck the ground. “The engine likely stopped due to ice blocking the airflow through the carburetor.”

Although TSB spokesperson John Cottreau says carburetor icing is a known issue in the industry, the report does not offer any recommendations and it appears that the TSB has not made any such recommendations since 1990.

8 O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 2 ohs canada

The Torrance, California-based Robinson Helicopter Company, which built the rotorcraft, has issued a series of safety notices to its operators to reduce the likelihood of similar accidents. Safety Notice SN-25, first issued in December 1986, but revised as recently as July 2012, noted that there have been “avoidable accidents” that could be attributed to engine stoppage caused by carburetor ice.

Both the safety notice and TSB report point out that helicopters take off using only as much power as required, with this partial throttle position making them more vulnerable to carburetor ice, especially when the engine and induction system are still cold, the report says.

The likelihood of ice accumulation can also be exacerbated by operations in cloud, fog, rain, areas of high humidity, or in this case, ground operations over wet surfaces, especially wet grass.

National police force fined FEDERAL — The RCMP was ordered to pay $100,000 after pleading guilty to Canada Labour Code charges involving an explosive device that went off in a Mountie’s hand two years ago.

Corporal Leigh Schooley, who was in charge of the RCMP detachment at Kitscoty, Alberta, lost all four fingers in his right hand in 2010 after he picked up a flash bang device with a faulty safety pin. The device had been left resting in a pail of water — placed there by two other officers who believed the water would render the device benign.

On August 14, the Provincial Court in Edmonton ordered the police force to pay $10,000 in fines and $90,000 to two charities that help injured workers.

Since Schooley gets a monthly pension from Veterans Affairs Canada, he will not see any of that money. Still, he thinks the gesture is not enough to make amends for the incident. “It doesn’t matter how much money because it doesn’t change what’s already done.”

The incident could have been prevented, Schooley notes, since the two officers who placed it in the pail of water did not tell anyone that they were doing so. “Even if they followed all their train-

ing and put it in the water and called the bomb guy, then somebody else in my detachment could have walked in and touched it. In my case, I think it sat there for six weeks.”

The RCMP says they have made changes to their training procedures relating to flash bang devices, adding the two officers who left the device in water are receiving internal discipline.

Schooley says he intends to facilitate changes to ensure that no other officer will face a similar risk.

Feds’ protest rebuffed WHITEHORSE — The Yukon coroner’s

office has received the green light to proceed with their inquest into the fatal drowning of an RCMP officer, despite attempts by the federal government to block the investigation.

Constable Michael Potvin drowned in the Stewart River, north of Whitehorse, after his RCMP vessel capsized in the summer of 2010.

The federal government had previously tried to block the coroner’s inquest — originally slated for May 2012 — on the grounds that independent investigations from Transport Canada, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) and others had thoroughly addressed the matter, thereby eliminating the need for the coroner’s inquiry.

The RCMP says neither Potvin nor the other officer on the boat at the time was wearing mandatory personal flotation devices when the vessel capsized.

The investigation found that the vessel, which was built in the mid-1980s, had undergone environmental and mechanical changes, resulting in water coming over the transom and stern. The motor also gave out as a result of blockage in the fuel system.

Sergeant Don Rogers, media relations officer for the Yukon RCMP division in Whitehorse, says “the lessons learned from this tragedy may also serve to inform and benefit the public and result in greater water safety practices.” Rogers cites updating vessels and equipment, emphasizing leadership accountability

Farm penalized for not reporting injury PITT MEADOWS – A blueberry farm in British Columbia was issued 18 orders stemming from an unreported incident involving a severe worker injury several months ago.

The orders were issued on August 7 after WorkSafeBC conducted an inspection of Purewal Brothers Enterprises Ltd. in Pitt Meadows, British Columbia following media reports that a workplace incident was kept under wraps. “CBC brought this matter to our attention from an enforcement perspective and we followed up immediately with an inspection,” says Donna Freeman, spokesperson for WorkSafeBC in Richmond, British Columbia.

The employer’s failure to notify the safety regulator more than three months after the incident was in contravention of Section 172(1)(a) of the Workers Compensation Act, which requires an employer to immediately notify the board of any serious injury or the death of a worker.

On April 29, 10 workers were applying herbicide using a boom-mounted spray applicator towed by a tractor when the applicator tipped, severely injuring one of the workers.

The employer representative, who was at the processing plant at the time, responded and transported the worker to the processing plant in a van. The first aid attendant was then notified, but as he was working at the production plant located some distance away, it was impossible for him to

respond within 10 minutes in the event of an incident. “This is evidence the employer had not ensured adequate and appropriate first aid services were in place at the time of the incident to promptly render first aid,” a WorkSafeBC report concludes.

Charan Gill, chief executive officer of Progressive Intercultural Community Services Society in Surrey, British Columbia is handling the claim on behalf of the injured worker. Gill reports the injured worker, who had worked on the farm for several years, inhaled some pesticide when the spray applicator toppled and dislocated his knee. “The ambulance came two hours later and he was in serious pain. He was unconscious for a while,” Charan says.

The slew of orders cites, among others, the employer’s failure to demonstrate workers had been provided with instruction, training and supervision to do their work safely; keep up-to-date written procedures for providing first aid at the worksite and provide evidence of records of new worker orientation and training of field workers.

Workers were issued half-face respirators that had not been fit-tested. Single strap dust masks that were not approved by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health were reportedly worn on the day of the incident.

— By Jean Lian

www.ohscanada.com

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012

9

and utilizing knowledge from local experts to understand the lay of the land among the measures taken. The police have also removed the aging boat from their fleet, in addition to five others which Transport Canada deemed to be at the end of their life cycle.

The coroner’s inquest is expected to begin this fall.

Police watchdog launched VANCOUVER — Police officers in British Columbia who are involved in deaths or serious injuries will now be held accountable by a civilian watchdog agency.

The Independent Investigations Office (IIO), launched on September 10, is tasked with investigating deaths or serious injuries that occur as a result of action taken by the RCMP and other police forces in the province. This can include municipal police departments, the transportation authority and the aboriginal police force.

The move came after two public inquiries into high profile deaths involving the

RCMP and the Vancouver Police Department. In 2007, Robert Dziekanski died after being tasered at the Vancouver airport; in 1998, Frank Paul froze to death in an alleyway after he was released from the city’s drunk tank. Both deaths prompted calls for the creation of a thirdparty accountability office.

As the newly-appointed chief civilian officer, Richard Rosenthal says the IIO will conduct thorough, fair, unbiased and competent investigations.

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association thinks that the creation of the IIO was a long time coming. “Police investigating themselves has been a major issue in terms of ensuring public confidence in very highly-charged cases,” says David Eby, executive director of the association in Vancouver.

He adds that both inquiries found the investigations to be lacking in terms of testing the evidence, gathering necessary witness statements, examining physical evidence at the scene and putting questions to the officers involved.

“They were more consistent with protecting the interests of the police rather

than protecting the interests of the public and ensuring adequate police accountability,” Eby charges.

Despite being a step in the right direction, Eby says the IIO mandate falls short. “The jurisdiction for this body right now is serious harm, which is like physically disabling injuries and/or death.

We expect this mandate to expand fairly rapidly,” he says, noting that allegations of sexual assault by police officers do not fall under the IIO’s purview. However, Rosenthal argues that his team must establish their footing before venturing into new territory.

To avoid any potential for bias, the IIO must not have anyone on staff who has served as a police officer in the province for the past five years.

Candid counsellor blacklisted VANCOUVER — A group of RCMP officers are considering legal action after their outspoken psychologist was blacklisted by the national police force.

Dr. Mike Webster was given an ulti-

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College launches pipeline safety course BOYLE – A college in rural Alberta has launched the first pipeline training centre in the province, with the aim of providing entry-level workers in the oil and gas sector with practical skills and helping more experienced workers move into managerial roles.

Portage College opened the facility in early September to co-exist with its heavy equipment training centre at the college’s newest campus in Boyle, Alberta. The program, the first of which is expected to be offered in September 2013, will cover five areas of pipeline training: construction, operation, maintenance, environment and regulatory policy.

Stuart Leitch, Portage College’s director of community and industry training initiatives, says the college is setting up a 42-person live, functioning mock camp. “The centre is actually not a brick-and-mortar facility; we are just in portable camps and portable structures,” Leitch explains, noting that many students who attend the training course are not prepared to live in camp conditions. ”A lot of the work that is in northeast Alberta right now is in fact remotely located, so the individuals in a number of trades or technical programs come through them, but don’t do well because they are in a camp setting.”

The first component of the training program will teach participants how to recognize equipment blind spots so that

students understand where to position themselves to stay visible to operators, Leitch says. Students will also obtain a “safety passport” containing information on first aid, confined spaces, hydrogen sulphide awareness, construction pipeline safety, rigging basics and hoisting load securement, among others.

In the winter months, an online training course will be developed focusing on advanced budgeting, financing and human resources aspects for workers already in the industry.

Leitch reports that 435,000 square feet has been set aside for above-ground pipes, containing four remotely controlled loops without fluid coursing through it. The purpose is to mimic a pipeline spill.

“The steep learning curve in the sector is eventually going to lead to a massive shortage of a competent and qualified workforce, so what we are looking at is trying to work with industry to ease into that,” Leitch says, adding that there are “no real standards for entry-level pipeline oil and gas people.”

The launch of the program follows an announcement by the Alberta government that an independent third party will conduct a review of pipeline safety in the province. The review is expected to take several months, says Janice Schroeder, spokesperson for Alberta Energy in Edmonton.

— By Jason Contant

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matum in August that saw about 25 of his patients — some of whom Webster has treated for many years — transferred to another psychologist. The RCMP has also filed a complaint against Webster to the College of Psychologists of British Columbia, the watchdog group which regulates psychologists in the province.

The announcement came as a blow to his patients, who say they were informed by the RCMP that they would have to foot the medical bills out of their own pockets if they wanted to continue seeking Webster’s counsel.

“My wife and I are beside ourselves, I can’t afford to pay for Mike’s services, I see him once a week,” says Corporal Roland Beaulieu, who has been off the job since February of 2011 and a patient of Webster’s for two years.

For someone who has openly condemned the RCMP, Webster says the decision was expected. “The RCMP has been taking things away from me gradually ever since I was publicly critical of them,” he claims.

Superintendent Brad Hartl, human resources officer for the RCMP, maintains that taxpayer money should be used in a manner that will get officers back to work quickly. He adds that the national police force’s priority is to hire an “impartial” psychologist who shares their goal of getting employees back to work.

But it was Webster’s criticism of the RCMP that attracted patients to him in the first place. “All my RCMP patients have a similar concern — they’re all victims of some kind of abuse or mistreatment in the workplace,” Webster says. “Most of them are on medical leave and they’re in conflict with their employer.

The reason they came to me in the first place was they knew that I was not one of the RCMP’s favourite people. So they thought they could trust me.”

Beaulieu says he and his fellow patients are seriously considering filing a class-action lawsuit, and that the RCMP should have waited for the College of Psychologists to finish their investigation before delisting Webster.

Alberta regulates naturopathic doctors EDMONTON — The move to recognize naturopathic doctors in Alberta as medical professionals allow the industry to selfgovern and remove those who do not meet established criteria.

On July 25, the Ministry of Health gave naturopathy full recognition under the Health Professions Act and created the province’s first College of Naturopathic Doctors of Alberta in Calgary.

“The college now has the same powers of self-governance that many of our other professions enjoy,” says provincial health minister Fred Horne. “The college has the ability to set entrance and continuing competency requirements for naturopathic doctors, control the use of professional titles, set standards for professional practice and establish disciplinary processes.”

Dr. Allissa Gaul, the college’s founding president, says after more than a decade of pushing for a self-regulating agency, the outcome will improve safety for their clients.

Alberta is the fifth province to regulate naturopathy. Gaul says naturopaths in British Columbia and Ontario have limited prescribing rights.

As an alternative medicine, naturopathy can range from homeopathy, diet and nutrition to herbal medicine. As there are only two certified schools of naturopathy in Canada, one of the college’s primary pursuits will be to ensure their professionals have proper training, even though naturopaths are not required

12 O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 2 ohs canada

to attend medical school.

Horne cites injections, minor surgeries, acupuncture and chelation therapy as permitted procedures that can be performed by naturopaths, but they are not allowed to prescribe drugs or order X-rays and ultrasounds.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons, the body which establishes a standardized code of ethics for medical doctors in the province, says the decision is good news for the industry.

“Anything that puts in checks and balances for any kind of health professional is a good thing,” college spokesperson Kelly Eby says from Edmonton.

calls to arm peace officers PRIDDIS — The murder of an RCMP peace

officer has some Albertans up in arms over whether or not he should have been provided with defensive equipment.

Rod Lazenby, a retired RCMP officer and a bylaw officer with the Public Service Peace Officer Program, was murdered on August 10 after responding to

a complaint in Priddis, southwest of Calgary. The Municipal District of Foothills, the town where the peace officer had worked since 2009, reports that Lazenby had been investigating several complaints from neighbours about dogs on a nearby property. Lazenby was beaten to death and dropped off at the police station in his own vehicle.

Trevor Kloschinsky has been charged with first-degree murder. His lawyer says he has requested his client’s mental health state be reviewed by a psychiatrist.

As a level 2 peace officer, Lazenby would have been armed with only a baton at the time of the assault. Level 1 peace officers are armed with both pepper spray and batons, says Jonathan Denis, the province’s solicitor-general and minister of public security.

In the wake of Lazenby’s death, a petition was launched, urging the provincial government to arm peace officers.

The petition argued that peace officers must have the same defensive equipment and training as police officers. Although peace officers should not be confused with a police officer, the former are often

tasked with enforcing the same laws.

Signatories of the petition are calling upon the solicitor-general to allow all qualified and properly trained peace officers to carry firearms and conductedenergy weapons during the performance of their duties.

“The safety of peace officers is paramount and will be part of the review we are conducting,” Denis says. “It is important to note, however, that to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time a peace officer has even been seriously injured on the job.”

Gas line rupture prompts fine REGINA — The individual responsible for

rupturing a gas line that resulted in the deaths of two nearby workers was issued a $28,000 fine on August 1.

On April 18, 2008, trucking firm owner Jack Boxall and his son Brent Boxall were killed and six were injured after Lorry Reimer snagged a gas line riser with his backhoe, causing a gas leakage that led to an explosion.

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On May 16, Reimer was found guilty of two counts under the province’s occupational health and safety legislation: failure to ensure mechanical excavation does not take place within 600 millimetres of an existing pipeline, and failure to ensure that his actions do not expose workers to risks to their health and safety.

A statement from the Ministry of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety in Regina notes that since the incident, its oh&s division has been reviewing regulations related to the guarding of aboveground gas risers.

electrical repair spurs injury REGINA — Two government ministries in Saskatchewan continue to probe a recent workplace incident in which a worker was injured while performing electrical upgrades at a post-secondary institution in Regina.

On August 13, an independent contractor was performing an electrical upgrade to the main electrical switchgear at the Wascana campus of the Saskatch-

ewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology. The process involved installing new electrical capacitors for a power factor correction, says Richard Murray, assistant deputy minister of property management with Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Central Services (MCS) in Regina.

The ministry operates about 720 government buildings throughout the province.

“It is an electrical upgrade that was taking place that had been planned, and they were the primary contractor responsible for performing the upgrade,” Murray notes. He adds that an electrical arc flash was being investigated as a possibility.

The occupational health and safety division of the Ministry of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety attended.

Safety inspectors with the MCS were also on site the day after the incident.

The MCS also brought in a third-party contractor to conduct an independent review, Murray reports, pointing out that the ministry always takes measures to hire experienced and licensed contractors to perform maintenance and upgrade work.

disinfectant fights superbug WINNIPEG — Health care workers in hos-

pitals will now have the aid of a new tool in the fight against the superbug C. dif­ficile, researchers from Winnipeg’s Université de Saint-Boniface claim in a study published in the Journal of Medical Microbiology.

Akwaton is a disinfectant that reportedly attacks spore-forming bacteria and is effective in destroying spores in water and those attached to stainless steel and glass surfaces at diluted concentrations.

Previous studies by the university have also shown that the disinfectant is able to fight against E. coli bacteria.

“Most disinfectants have to be applied at much higher concentrations — typically between four and 10 per cent — which may be harmful to humans,” a statement from the French-language university noted on August 13.

“Akwaton destroys spores at concentrations well below one per cent,” says lead author Mathias Oulé, professor of microbiology at the university.

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Pipe corrosion leads to blast covering almost 640 acres of a Saskatchewan oil refinery caused a major explosion that injured 52 workers last year.

An investigation into the October of 2011 explosion at the Co-operative Refineries Limited (CCRL) crude oil refinery in Regina found that a six-inch diameter line carrying hydrogen gas, hydrogen sulphide and diesel gas suffered a catastrophic failure. The intensity of the explosion caused the breach of four other hydrogen sulphide lines.

The Ministry of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety is investigating and will determine if any charges will be laid.

“With diesel hydrocarbon mixed with hydrogen and that temperature, the ignition was inevitable,” says Vic Huard, CCRL’s vice-president of corporate affairs, noting the static created from the velocity at which the gas was escaping from the pipe could have caused the ignition.

A parallel investigation by CCRL found the 7.5-inch rupture was caused by corrosion and uniform wall thinning along the upper half of the pipe from the pressure of the gas and high operating temperatures. The walls of the pipe were much thinner than the pipes it was connected to and previous inspections of the pipe indicated they were within acceptable limits, a statement from CCRL noted on August 16.

“Our inspection protocols and judgment led us to believe

we had identified all problem areas and made the necessary pipe replacement,” says Scott Banda, CEO of Federated Co-operatives Limited, which owns CCRL. “Unfortunately, that was not the case.”

The pipe that burst was last inspected in 2010 as part of a maintenance plan, Huard says. The company has done a full visual and X-ray inspection of the 94,000 inspection points for all pipes in the complex since the incident.

All piping in the area that was damaged by the fire has been replaced, including 80 per cent of piping in the diesel processing area where the explosion occurred.

The company cites 19 remediation actions that have been taken in response to the event, including written procedures outlining how pipe wall thickness monitoring locations are determined and additional inspections that must be conducted if high corrosion rates are detected.

Workers were given a week off after the incident to deal with any emotional issues they may have experienced. “In an industrial complex the size of the refinery, we can never say with 100 per cent certainty that this type of incident will never happen again. What we can promise is to always strive for continuous improvement in all aspects of our operations, including personnel and public safety,” Banda says.

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safety campaign targets youth workers WINNIPEG — The Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba, in partnership with the Workplace Safety and Health Division, is launching “Spot the Zombie Manitoba”, the board’s 2012 youth safety campaign.

The campaign, targeted at workers between 15 and 24 years of age, encourages them to practice the SAFE Work risk management model: spot the hazard, assess the risk and find a safer way, a board statement noted on September 18.

“This campaign will get the attention of young workers and remind them of the many workplace hazards that may be lurking around the corner. Our goal is to educate young people and employers about the importance of workplace safety and training and create SAFE Workers for life,” Jennifer Howard, family services and labour minister, says in the statement.

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was fatally struck by a subway train in the wee hours of the morning on September 14.

Peter Pavlovski, 49, was repairing tracks on the Yonge-University-Spadina subway line at approximately 4:45 a.m. when he and another worker were struck by an oncoming service car. The foreman, who had been working with the TTC since 1990, was killed while his co-worker sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

TTC spokesperson Brad Ross says it is too early to tell what led to the accident. The Ministry of Labour, the joint health and safety committee and the commission have all launched separate investigations, which are expected to take several months.

“This is a tragic incident. The TTC will leave no stone unturned in understanding the circumstances that led to Mr. Pavlovski’s death,” Ross says in a statement.

Andy Byford, chief executive officer of the transit operator, promised a full probe into the incident. “This is a terrible accident, we’re all in a big shock about this. Our key goal is to find out what happened,” Byford said on the morning of Pavlovski’s death.

The latest fatality dealt a major blow to the transit operator, which shuttles more than one million Torontonians each day and has previously touted its workplace safety record. “This is a great tragedy for the families of the victims and for the entire TTC family,” Bob Kinnear, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, which represents all TTC employees, says in a statement.

“We do not yet know how this happened, but the investigation is intense and all agencies involved, including the union, will not rest until we know about how this happened,” he adds.

Labour ministry spokesperson Matt Blajer says the investigation is ongoing and no orders have been issued at press time.

The last time a TTC employee was killed on the job was in 2007. Tony Almeida was crushed by a stray piece of scaffolding while working inside a subway tunnel.

“Our family is grieving the tragic and untimely death of our beloved Peter,” Pavlovski’s family says in a statement issued to the media through the TTC. On the day of Pavlovski’s funeral on September 19, all subway trains, buses and streetcars halted service to observe a moment of silence.

Crown appeals Metron fine TORONTO — Although it was double the

previous highest fine for criminal negligence causing death in Canadian history, Ontario’s Attorney General argues the sentence given to Metron Construction Ltd. was not enough.

An application for leave to appeal was filed with the Ontario Court of Appeal in early August against the $200,000 fine handed down to the company this July, in connection with the swing stage collapse that resulted in four worker fatalities on Christmas Eve of 2009. The guilty plea was the first from a corporation in Ontario since Bill C-45 was introduced in 2004, which saw all 30 oh&s charges dropped as part of the plea.

In its application for appeal, the attorney general asked for the sentence to be “increased substantially,” arguing the sentence is unfit and the trial judge erred in his assessment of the appropriate sentencing range and application of appropriate sections of the criminal code.

In his decision, Justice Robert Bigelow writes the monetary value of the fines was based on the concurrent fines to Metron Construction president Joel Swartz, the financial status of both Swartz and Metron, and the prior good character of the corporation, along with the severity of the failures of the company’s legal duty.

The Crown had submitted that a fine of $1 million would be appropriate, while the company’s defence put forward a fine of $100,000.

“Last year, a GTA grocery store found guilty of health and safety violations was fined $350,000 for the death of just one worker. Surely to goodness a Criminal Code conviction should set a higher standard than a Ministry of Labour fine and four workers’ lives should be treated with at least four times the severity,” Sid Ryan, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, argues in a statement.

followed a review of conduct, which included alleged incidents of threats, intimidation, harassment and violence.

“We are elated that this person was successful with their arbitration because right from the beginning, we think that Vale overreacted with their decision,” says Myles Sullivan, the United Steelworkers (USW) staff representative for District Six, which represents Ontario and the Atlantic provinces.

The strike, which lasted from July 2009 to July 2010, was prolonged because the union deemed the reinstatement of the fired workers to be a necessary term of any collective agreement. But the mining company decided “that ‘under no circumstances’ could Vale allow for any of the discharged employees to be returned to work,” wrote Ian Anderson for the Ontario Labour Relations Board in Toronto in a ruling earlier this year.

Arbitrator reinstates worker

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SUDBURY — One of nine workers who

was terminated over alleged misconduct on the picket line during a nasty labour dispute has been reinstated almost three years after his initial termination.

Mike Courchesne was among the employees fired by Vale in 2009 during a year-long strike at the company’s nickel mine in Sudbury, Ontario. The dismissal

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OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012

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attendant killed in gas-and-dash TORONTO – Gas-and-dash is back in the spotlight following the death of a gas station attendant in Toronto.

Just after 9 p.m. on September 15, a man driving an SUV took off after filling up with more than $110 in fuel at a Shell Canada gas station. Gas station attendant Jayesh Prajapati, 44, was struck and killed by the vehicle while trying to stop the theft, a statement from Toronto Police Service (TPS) reports.

Although the primary investigation is criminal in nature, Matt Blajer, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Labour, says it is conducting an investigation to determine if the employer, or an independent owner if applicable, has workplace violence policies and programs in place as prescribed under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. The Ontario Federation of Labour has called for a criminal negligence investigation, citing allegations that the owner of the Shell franchise where the fatality occurred may have employed an unofficial policy of docking workers’ wages for gasoline theft that occurred on their shift.

Sid Ryan, president of the federation, says in a statement that such a policy “puts tremendous pressure on minimumwage workers to put their lives in harm’s way to protect their income.” The federation has launched a hotline seeking anonymous tips on franchise owners and companies.

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David Williams, head of media relations for Shell Canada Limited in Calgary, says while the company does not dictate the terms of employment between retailers and their sales associates, “the Ontario Employment Standards Act prohibits employers from deducting wages because the employer had property stolen and any person other than the staff member has access to the property,” he stresses.

The company has “reminded operators that it is illegal to charge sales associates for drive-aways,” Williams adds.

Five days after the fatal incident, Liberal MPP Mike Colle introduced a private members bill called Jayesh’s Law that would impose penalties on employers who force gas station employees to pay for thefts out of their own pocket, require payment before pumping gas and suspend the license of those caught stealing gas.

He has also requested for an inquest into the deaths of two gas attendants within the last 16 months. Hashem Atifeh Rad was struck and killed in a gas-and-dash incident in Mississauga on May 26, 2011.

Ontario is not the first province to propose mandatory prepayment. A pay-then-pump system was instituted in British Columbia in 2008 after the death of Grant De Patie in Maple Ridge in March of 2005.

— By Jason Contant

“We’re hopeful he will be back to work by the end of September. The arbitrator has given the company that much time to have Mr. Courchesne medically assessed,” says Denis Theriault, vicepresident of USW Local 6500.

“Although we stand by our view that Mr. Courchesne’s conduct warranted discipline — something the arbitrator concluded as well — we will follow through on the decision as directed,” a company statement noted in August.

Five workers are still waiting for their arbitration hearing, as one worker settled with USW and Vale to take his pension and retire at the end of the strike. Two others have found work elsewhere and do not want to return, Sullivan confirms.

Three of those workers — Mike French, Jason Patterson and Patrick Vienot — were charged in early 2009 with assaulting a co-worker while he was out jogging, because he had crossed the picket line to continue work. French was convicted of assault and charges against the other two were dropped.

Theriault says he expects the arbitration to be completed by year end.

WCB announces changes HALIFAX — The Workers’ Compensation Board of Nova Scotia has announced changes that would see employers’ safety and return-to-work records, including worker fatalities, having a greater impact on their rates.

“An employer’s cost for WCB insurance depends on two things — the cost of the claims in their industry overall and the cost of claims in their individual workplace,” Stuart MacLean, CEO of the WCB said in a statement on September 4. “Many employers are making valuable investments in safety within their workplaces, and we are changing the rate setting model to more accurately reflect their efforts.”

The WCB will continue its practice of offering financial incentives to encourage safety improvements. Each year, the WCB issues surcharges to employers whose claims costs are significantly and consistently higher than their industry peers. For the 2013 fiscal year, 90 employers will be issued a surcharge, down from 96 surcharges in 2012.

The average insurance rate remained at $2.65 per $100 of assessable payroll.

Rates have decreased by more than 10 per cent in industries, such as printing,

shipbuilding, boatbuilding and dairy farms. However, sectors like bakery, site work, stevedoring, general freight trucking and building material sales have reported an increase in rates.

police Officer assaulted PROSPECT — An RCMP officer was assaulted after pulling over a vehicle with a stolen license plate.

On September 2, a vehicle with three occupants was pulled over and the 22-year-old driver was arrested during an early-morning checkpoint near Prospect, Nova Scotia.

During the arrest, the two passengers left the vehicle and began to shout obscenities and threats, ignoring the officer’s orders to get back into the vehicle.

One passenger, who was being arrested for obstruction, assaulted the officer, who used her pepper spray to subdue the suspect, notes a statement from the Nova Scotia RCMP. The 21-year-old faces charges of assaulting an officer, resisting arrest and obstruction.

review seeks feedback CHARLOTTETOWN — Changes are in the works for many of the policies at the Workers Compensation Board of Prince Edward Island, with the board seeking feedback from stakeholders on nine policies under review by end of September.

The policies in question include interest payments on delayed compensation awards, overpayments to workers, hospital room amenities, vehicle modifica-

tions, vibration-induced diseases and deliberate misrepresentation.

guilty charges yield fines ST. JOHN’S — A roofing company and a supervisor from Flatrock, Newfoundland, have both pleaded guilty to charges laid after an inspection by Service NL’s occupational health and safety branch in June of 2012.

Oceanside Roofing Inc. was fined $2,000 for failing to ensure that a fall arrest system was adequately secured to an anchorage point or lifeline. Charges alleging failure to provide and maintain a safe workplace were withdrawn.

The company’s supervisor and director pleaded guilty to failing as a supervisor to ensure that another worker wore fall protection, and failing as a worker to ensure his own fall arrest system was secured to an anchorage point or lifeline.

He was fined $750 as a supervisor and $500 as a worker. The charge of failing as a worker to use the provided fall arrest system was withdrawn.

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada Many of the preceding items are based on stories from our sister publication, canadian occupational health & safety news, a weekly newsletter that provides detailed coverage of Canadian oh&s and workers’ compensation issues. For more information, please call (416) 442-2122 or tollfree (800) 668-2374.

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DISPATCHES

Workplace safety education gets creative – and retro

Ray Allen, the college’s vice-president for academic affairs and provost, says students used iconic graphic language to “call attention to a very serious subject.”

By Jean Lian

Jean Lian is editor of ohs canada.

orkplace safety education has taken a creative twist with the recent release of a film exploring job site accidents.

“Before Day’s End” is a documentary film commissioned by the Mississauga, Ontario-based Christian Labour Association of Canada, an independent labour union representing more than 50,000 workers in various sectors. The film provides an emotional first-hand account of five accidents and their devastating aftermath from the perspective of victims and family members.

By bringing the human impact that workplace incidents have on victims and their communities to the big screen, the documentary highlights the importance of working safely, a statement from the union noted in August. “Whether or not you can relate to the experiences of the people in this film, one message will hit home: that every moment on the job site counts and awareness is the first crucial step toward prevention,” the statement adds.

In 2010, there were 377 work-related fatalities in Ontario — a 16 per cent increase from 324 in 2009, notes statistics from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board in Toronto.

Between 2006 and 2010, there were 46,134 accepted lost-time claims for young workers. Employees aged between 15 and 19 years accounted for 29 per cent (13,334) of those claims, while those aged between 20 and 24 years made up the remaining 71 per cent (32,800).

Using the creative juice to aid the promotion of workplace health and safety does not stop at the border. Down south, Johns Hopkins University and the Maryland Institute College of Art in Maryland have teamed up to produce lab safety posters in neon colours and bold types reminiscent of concert advertisements during the 1960s and ’70s.

The two institutions worked with Johns Hopkins’ safety experts, who provided a list of dos and don’ts for students working in laboratories. Students from the college designed the letterpress and screen-printed poster with catchy messages, such as “Lab Safety – It’s Not Rocket Science.”

The posters, slated to appear in laboratories of the two campuses this fall, remind students to wear closed-toe shoes, tie loose hair back, wear safety goggles and follow other basic rules when working in laboratories.

“This partnership allowed us to look at a matter we take very seriously in a positive, fun and creative way,” Nick Jones, dean of Johns Hopkins’ Whiting School of Engineering, says in a statement.

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20 O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 2 ohs canada

By Greg Burchell

T

he appeals tribunal for the Yukon Workers’ Compensation Health and Safety Board has been ordered to restore the benefits of an individual who was injured more than 20 years ago.

The decision, released August 23, found the board’s investigation was flawed and that surveillance gathered — which showed the worker performing maintenance on a car, carrying groceries and mowing his lawn, amongst other activities — did not prove the worker was committing fraud. The board had cut off his benefits in April of 2011. The worker, now 53 years old, filed a notice of appeal three months after.

In 1991, the worker, who was employed as a miner, was seriously injured when the bunkhouse where he was staying exploded and he was thrown into a wall of snow and ice.

“Based on the medical evidence and investigation, our decision makers felt that the individual is not totally disabled as benefits were paying for. As a result we ended the benefits and, as is his right, he appealed,” says Valerie Royle, president of the Yukon Workers’ Compensation Health and Safety Board in Whitehorse.

The board’s directors have 30 days from the decision to conduct a review and decide whether or not to reimburse and continue the benefits, or stay the decision and send it back for review by a different panel. “We don’t often send things back, when we do there’s often something big in it,” Royle says.

Although this is the second time this year the tribunal has rejected the findings of an investigation, Royle says the board is not considering making changes to its surveillance program until it decides whether or not to accept the ruling.

“We’re always looking to do things better, but we’ve had four of the investigation files go to the appeal tribunal [this year].

One was upheld, one was overturned and the others are in process. It’s tough to make broad sweeping changes based on that circumstance.”

Royle adds that all the investigations conducted by the board stem from referrals from a staff member, an employer, a family member, people in the community, or even an exspouse. Investigations typically take 10 months to complete.

She notes that of the 12 compensation boards across Canada, 11 have investigators. “It has been shown in our jurisdic-

tion and in others that the reality is there are some people who are getting benefits or compensation or funds out of the system who are not entitled, and my job is to make sure the fund is secure for those who are entitled.”

Greg Burchell is assistant editor of canadian occupational health and safety news.

Long work schedules linked to obesity among nurses

By Jean Lian

O

besity risk among nurses with adverse work schedules is linked to the lack of opportunity for exercise and sleep, says a recent study by researchers from the University of Maryland’s school of medicine in Baltimore.

“Adverse work schedules may be an overriding work-related factor for nurse obesity,” Dr. Alison Trinkoff, professor with the University of Maryland’s school of nursing, said in a statement in August. “For nurses with unfavourable work schedules, organizations should support improving schedules and promote the ability to practice healthy behaviors,” she adds.

The study analyzed data on more than 1,700 female nurses, focusing on obesityrelated factors in nurses with adverse work schedules. These include long hours, shift work, high workload, lack of rest and required on-call or overtime.

Obesity-related factors for approximately 700 nurses meeting the above criteria were compared with 1,000 nurses with more favourable work schedules.

Although some 55 per cent of nurses in both groups are overweight or obese, the risk factors for unhealthy weight differed between groups.

In the group with non-standard work schedules, nurses who are obese sleep less, have less restful sleep, exercise less and are more likely to care for children or dependents. On top of the lack of opportunities for a healthy lifestyle, they may also have difficulty accessing healthy foods.

In contrast, obesity-related factors for nurses with favourable work schedules are linked to unhealthy behaviours, such as smoking and alcohol use. Factors reflecting job stress also affected obesity risk, the study suggests.

“Long hours, shift work and other non-standard work schedules have been linked to higher rates of obesity. For the many nurses who work such adverse schedules, special attention may be needed to prevent obesity and protect health,” notes a statement from the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, which published the study in its journal in August.

“The reality is nurses don’t work a nine-to-five schedule and they are never going to work a nine-to-five schedule,” says Vicki McKenna, a registered nurse and first vice-president of Ontario Nurses’ Association in Toronto. She adds that nurses have one of the highest injury rates in the workforce

in the province, many of which involve back injuries or musculoskeletal disorders.

McKenna points to a number of hospitals in London, Ontario that have implemented fitness programs in the units where nurses work as among the measures undertaken to improve the well-being of health care workers. Nutritionists providing advice on healthy eating also helps nurses to avoid “the easy trap of the vending machine” and refrain from seeking out “food that is fast and quick because you only have 10 minutes,” McKenna adds.

Weight gain from long work hours is not unique to the nursing profession. A study by researchers from Monash University in Victoria, Australia investigated the influence of employment and work hours on weight gain and weight loss among 9,200 middle-aged women aged between 45 and 50 years.

The findings, published this June in the International Journal of Obesity, indicate that employment was associated with more weight gain and less weight loss.

Among the employed women, working regular (35-40), long (41-48) or very long (more than 49) hours was associated with increasingly higher levels of weight gain, compared with working part-time hours.

Health effects are also more serious at the higher levels of weight gain, suggesting that women who work longer hours are more likely to make lifestyle choices that will result in putting on weight.

Counselling helps promote early return-to-work

By Jean Lian

P

roviding advice on staying active to workers on medical leave due to low back pain increases the chances of returning to work (RTW).

A study conducted by Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium looked at more than 500 workers, the majority of which were blue-collar workers on sick leave due to low back pain, noted a statement in August from Wolters Kluwer Health, a global provider of health care information based in Riverwoods, Illinois. Half of the workers were randomly assigned to receive counselling on low back pain, while the remaining workers had only the standard disability evaluation.

Results indicate that workers who received information and advice were more likely to eventually go off disability and return to work. By the end of one year, only four per cent of

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workers in the counselling group had not returned to work, compared to eight per cent of those receiving disability evaluation only. “Combined counselling and disability evaluation by a medical advisor results in a higher return-to-work rate due to a lower sick leave recurrence as compared to disability evaluation alone,” the study concludes.

The difference is largely the result of a lower rate of repeated episodes of medical leave among workers who receive information and advice: 38 per cent, compared to 60 per cent with evaluation only.

“This ‘rehabilitation-oriented approach’ seems to improve outcomes by reducing the rate of recurrent sick leave, doubling the chances of return to work in the subsequent months,” the study adds. “Including this information and advice as part of routine evaluation for low back pain can increase the percentage of patients returning-to-work.”

However, study authors point out that routine counselling need to be provided as early as within six weeks after the patient goes on medical leave and “before any side effects of being sick-listed have settled.”

In Ontario, non-specific low back pain unrelated to any specific abnormality is a common and costly medical problem. It is estimated that employers paid more than $1 billion in direct and indirect costs related to musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) from 2003 to 2007. Indirect costs include overtime, equipment modifications, administration, retraining and lost productivity, notes information from Ontario’s Ministry of Labour.

Workers are more likely to develop MSD if they perform job tasks that involve repetitive movements, forceful efforts and fixed or awkward postures. Symptoms include discomfort, pain, numbness, tingling, weakness and restricted movements, the labour ministry adds.

A successful return-towork program involves more than just keeping injured workers informed. An information sheet from the Institute for Work and Health in Toronto cites seven principles for successful RTW, some of which are as follows: • Demonstration of a strong commitment to health and safety by workplace parties; • Provision of modified work to accommodate injured or ill workers; • Ensure the plan that supports the returning worker does not put co-workers and supervisors at a disadvantage; • Training supervisors in work disability and involving them in RTW planning; • Having a designated a person assume the responsibility of coordinating RTW; and, • Maintaining communication between employers and health care providers about workplace demands as needed and with the worker’s consent.

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Plane overshooting runway prompts investigation

By Sabrina Nanji

T

he Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) has launched an investigation at a Newfoundland airport after a cargo plane overran the runway.

On August 13, the Ilyushin 76 was flying into St. John’s, Newfoundland from Prestwick, Scotland when it overshot the airport’s primary runway by almost 250 metres. None of the nine crew members required medical attention, St. John’s International Airport Authority reports.

“The airport authority’s operations, field maintenance and electrical teams, along with the airline crew, proceeded to remove the aircraft from the runway,” notes information from the airport authority. “Prior to being returned to service, the damages to the airfield lighting system were repaired, the runway was swept of any debris and the runway was inspected.” The airport’s primary runway was back in full service two days later.

“One major issue we have identified is that in bad weather, pilots need to get timely information about runway service conditions,” explains Michael Cunningham, the TSB’s air branch manager of regional operations in Atlantic Canada.

“If the runway surface condition is not dry, if it is contaminated with water or just moisture, this is going to reduce the effectiveness of the braking system,” he adds.

Cunningham notes that it was raining in St. John’s on that day, although it is too early in the investigation to determine what caused the incident. “They actually did a great job, maneuvering to the right of the approach lighting system for that runway and they avoided doing any additional damage to the airport infrastructure,” he says, adding that the outcome could have been much worse as many airports are not adequately prepared for such an event.

Since 2010, there were 21 landing incidents in Canada that could be attributed to inefficient runway surface condition reporting and safety landing areas.

Cunningham notes that since 2010, airport excursions have been a high priority on the TSB’s watchlist, which identifies issues that safety regulators deem the highest risk to the country’s transportation systems.

Weather conditions are vital to a smooth touch-down as pilots calculate the distance before each landing. When weather reports are not available, airplanes could veer off to the side or the end of the runway, which the TSB says must be clear of obstructions.

The solution, the TSB notes, is to ensure topical and accurate weather reporting. “Airports need to lengthen the safety areas at the end of runways or install other engineered systems and structures to safely stop planes that overrun.”

Sabrina Nanji is editorial assistant of canadian occupational health and safety news.

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

The Canadian Society of Safety Engineering concluded its conference, which ran from September 9 to 12 in Niagara Falls. The conference program comprised 47 sessions, including six half-day workshops that addressed various emerging issues in occupational health and safety.

Peter Sturm, then-president of CSSE, welcomes the delegation at the opening ceremony and keynote address by Dr. Todd Conklin on September 10.

Keynote speaker Eldeen Pozniak, director of Pozniak Safety Associates Inc., on how oh&s professionals can maximize safety outcomes within their organizations.

Then-CSSE president Peter Sturm looks on as Katherine Tull, industry specialist at WorkSafeBC (middle), receives the NAOSH Week Best New Entry award on behalf of Graymont Western from Dan Demers (right), occupational health operations manager with award sponsor CannAmm.

Fred Leafloor, a CSSE education instructor, conducted a two-day course on applying effective interpersonal communication techniques to assist in risk management challenges.

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Recipients who have shown excellence in workplace safety initiatives and activities were duly recognized at the CSSE awards presentation.

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gender transition

A New Life

By Sabrina Nanji When Annette Elliott showed up for work on that first day, her co-workers were stupefied. They have always known her as Anthony, the father of four and a diligent air traffic controller at NAV Canada’s tower in Winnipeg since 1994.

Elliott’s transformation from a man to a woman may have been a shocking change for her fellow colleagues, but for Anthony — now Annette — her new skin signaled the beginning of the end of her inner turmoil and a manifestation of her true self.

However, coming out as transgendered in the workplace was as daunting as it was liberating; a journey

Image: illustration Source - Bruno Budrovic

that was, to say the least, littered with challenges.

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E

lliott is not alone in her struggle. On the whole, the transgender community faces significant barriers on the job. While lawmakers scramble to update human rights protections to safeguard the rights of transgendered employees, the duty to accommodate this group of workers has, inadvertently, fallen on the laps of employers.

Despite a consistent education rate, the transgendered community has high unemployment and low salaries, notes a study by Trans PULSE, a community-based research project investigating the impact of social exclusion and discrimination on the health of trans people in London, Ontario.

“The first two years were the toughest by a long way, especially at work,” recalls Elliott, who underwent sexual reassignment surgery in 2008. “It was a sliding scale — the first three months were a nightmare, the first nine months were ‘Oh my god, I’m sleeping 10 hours a night because I’m so worn out by the end of the day’ — and then after that things got much easier.”

Faced with discrimination, stigmatization and even harassment, transgendered employees must tackle day-to-day challenges on the job, notes barbara findlay, a Vancouver-based lesbian feminist lawyer who specializes in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) issues (and prefers to use only lower-case letters in her name.)

“Their first question is, ‘Is my employer going to freak out if I tell them that I’ve been coming to work as Sam, and I want to start coming to work as Samantha?’” findlay says.

However, she notes the general climate toward LGBT workers over the last two decades has become more progressive, although the reaction and tolerance of employers can and do vary widely. “You just have to take the plunge and see what they say,” findlay adds.

After Elliott took that plunge, her work life became much worse before it took a turn for the better. On her first day back in the office as a woman, wearing jeans and a zip-up hooded sweatshirt, Elliott says her knees locked and she could barely walk, feeling like “the prized gorilla at the zoo.”

“It was horrible, absolutely horrible,” she says, adding that the human resources department had denied her request to be transferred to another control tower as they were short-staffed. “I wanted to finish in Winnipeg one day as Anthony, and then go to a new tower so at least, it would be a fresh start for me and the people.”

Instead, she returned to the Winnipeg tower. “That terrified me. That was the hardest part of the transition: facing all these people who I had worked with for 12 or 13 years.”

sponsibility to each and every one of their employees, and any one of them could one day show up and tell them that they are in the process of changing sex,” Susset offers. the other Transphobia is often rooted in misunderstanding and fear of the unknown, Susset notes, adding that gays and lesbians were considered mentally ill half a century ago.

“Our understanding of gender identity is probably where it was 30 years ago. It is not well-known and often surrounds a lot of stereotypes and misinformation,” says Edmonton-based Dr. Kristopher Wells, an assistant professor at the University of Alberta and associate director of the Institute for Sexual Minority Studies and Services.

Dr. Wells points out the trans community is among those at greatest risk for violence and discrimination. However, he notes the community is also becoming more aware of the human rights obligation for employers to provide an inclusive work environment that is free from discrimination.

In many workplaces across Canada, the road towards embracing transgendered co-workers remains long and arduous. Of the 433 trans Ontarians that Trans PULSE enlisted for its study on workplace acceptance, only 21 per cent indicated “always” when asked whether or not their colleagues were accepting of their transition.

Dr. Nicola Brown, staff psychologist at the gender identity clinic based out of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, says she has seen many disenfranchised transgendered workers come through her doors. Factors, such as whether or not one is employed or has a job offer in

The transgender community faces significant barriers on the job.

ON THE MARK Gender dysphoria refers to a gender identity disorder in which an individual is discontent with one’s biological sex or its usual gender. Treatment for this medical condition includes counselling, undergoing cross-gender hormone therapy or sexual reassignment surgery.

“It is not a psychiatric illness; it is a physical illness with a physical fix,” says Lindy Mechefske, author of an upcoming book on the transgender experience and an editor in Kingston, Ontario.

If an individual has decided to undergo the surgery, he or she will have to inform the employer that a transition is taking place. At this point, the employer will have to look into any occupational health and safety accommodations that the worker may need, Mechefske notes.

For most transgendered workers, facing their peers postsurgery requires gall, says Françoise Susset, president of the Canadian Professional Association for Transgender Health (CPATH) in Montreal. One also has to be ready to make such a move. Elliott, for instance, was counselled by her psychiatrist at the time, who determined that she was ready to go public with her sexual transition.

It is also a conversation for which every employer must be prepared. “The employer needs to know they have a re-

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small steps, big strides While the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has developed policy statements and guidelines that cover many human rights issues, those related to gender identity remain largely unresolved in procedures and law, the OHRC’s Policy on Discrimination and Harassment Because of Gender Identity notes.

However, that changed when Ontario passed the Toby Act this past June and the Ontario Human Rights Code was amended to include gender identity and expression.

Manitoba followed suit in the same month.

The two provinces are the latest to jump on the bandwagon. The Northwest Territories blazed the trail by becoming the first jurisdiction in Canada to include gender identity as part of its human rights mandate in 2002.

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place, and access to a social or union-based support network need to be considered prior to coming out.

One also has to be prepared to deal with adverse reaction — even derision — from colleagues. Brown cites a transgendered worker she knows, who was the butt of a joke circulated over email at her workplace.

The public’s reaction towards someone who has undergone a gender transition may be something the individual concerned is not prepared to face. Elliott’s hard landing following her transition was so daunting that she asked her doctor to prescribe her a week off from work.

“I was wallpaper. The conversations went on around me and about me. I was suddenly out of the conversation, nobody really wanted to talk to me, whereas before, I had just been one of the group,” Elliott says. She describes the huge array of emotions demonstrated by her co-workers, which ranged from distaste to wonder. “It wasn’t because they wanted to ignore me; it was because they didn’t know what to say.”

BITTERSWEET gains While coming out on the job is, in many ways, a personal victory, it is also a precursor to many obstacles that must first be surmounted before the fruits of that victory can be savoured.

Wells thinks education is the most powerful weapon employers have in their arsenal to discourage discrimination and ostracism, which can create a hostile work environment.

“Part of the challenge is that many places have not developed process or policy to support transgender employees,” Wells argues, citing the need for a professional to provide some education around sexual orientation and gender identity.

Susset, who hosts such sessions as part of her work with CPATH, has been recruited by employers to prepare staff members on how to deal with transgender-related issues at work. She notes that most employers do address sexual orientation issues in their policies.

Having the support of the company or a union, if applicable, is vital to smoothing the transition for everyone in the workplace. Susset recounts an incident in which an employer refused to conduct any training or provide information in relation to a worker who had recently undergone sexual transition. The employer “basically gathered all the employees and

said, ‘If you don’t say the right thing with this person, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble,’ which resulted in nobody talking to her,” she cites by way of example.

Ken Stuart, the national representative and Pride liaison with the Canadian Autoworkers Union (CAW) in Winnipeg, advises employers to hold information sessions as soon as a trans employee has gone public to avoid potential problems.

The CAW union, of which Elliott is a member, has published an unofficial Trans 101 guide. The booklet cites washroom use as the most common and recurring problem in the workplace for those going through gender reassignment.

“I know sometimes employees have complained to a supervisor. Other folks have told us some people try to peek through the open space between the [stall] door or get yelled at,” staff psychologist Dr. Brown reveals.

SENSITIVE GROUNDS “Employers need to understand that they are obliged to permit an individual to use the washroom of her gender identity.

It is not okay to send her up three flights of stairs and through back alleys to some never-used-by-anybody-else-since-thebeginning-of-time washroom,” findlay quips, adding that whether or not surgery has taken place is irrelevant.

Alternatively, a transgendered worker may opt for a gender-neutral, private washroom, although that choice lies with the employee. “Some people have been told to use the disabled bathroom, but they say that’s stigmatization too because they are not disabled,” Mechefske says. “They just want to be able to comfortably use a female bathroom.”

However, Mary Ellen Douglas, national organizer for Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), a pro-life organization in Toronto, has expressed concerns that this can jeopardize the safety of women. “It would make women feel uncomfortable and perhaps, even endanger them. Washrooms should be places where women feel safe and not find someone there that they don’t expect,” Douglas contends.

She adds that a gender-neutral washroom could also give rise to dangerous situations, such as sexual assault or harassment. “There will be an increased legal opportunity for sexual predators and peeping toms who pretend to be transgendered to enter female bathrooms,” a CLC statement contends.

a culture of respect For many Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) employees, the effort workers invest in hiding their sexual orientation or gender identity can take a toll on their productivity and emotional and physical health, notes information from the Ottawa-based HR Council for the Nonprofit Sector.

Employers who want to invest in an inclusive and supportive workplace can adopt the following measures: • Implement policies and procedures to support diversity, anti-discrimination and anti-harassment; • Put in place and uphold zero tolerance for inappropriate comments, jokes and/or behaviour; • Extend employment and pension benefits (if applicable)

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to same-sex couples; Use an inclusive and non gender-specific term like ‘partners’ when inviting spouses to social activities, and, • Arrange for sensitivity training for all staff.

For employees going through gender transition, open communication is key. In larger organizations, switching departments may help both staff and the transitioning employee adjust. If relevant, discussions on how workplace uniform or dress code will be handled should be conducted. An official name change in human resources and administrative records is also required once the employee has completed the transition.

•

Douglas thinks that an individual who is biologically male should continue using the gents, even though he might feel otherwise. “I don’t think they should impose this on other people,” she adds.

As well, using the right name or proper pronoun is another area spiked with landmines. Susset illustrates that a coworker might say, ‘Go see Julie, he’ll help you with that problem.’ An occasional slip-up will likely be deemed as an honest mistake, but prolonged use of the wrong pronoun can appear snide and chip away at the overall well-being of the employee concerned.

Mechefske is of the mind that the evolving demographics of the trans community could signal a shift toward policy change in workplaces. “I do think people coming out as transgender is on the increase, and I do think transgenderism itself is on the increase,” she opines.

“Whereas once upon a time, they might have remained a cross-dresser or not even done that — just suffered with some sort of anguish they couldn’t define.”

From a productivity perspective, a worker afflicted with personal problems can negatively influence morale, staff retention and the company’s bottom line. Companies that offer an inclusive environment will not only attract employees, but also keep them onboard, Dr. Wells suggests.

One area where the door can be shut on trans people, often without legal ramifications, are jobs in sectors reserved for women only. British Columbia’s Human Rights Tribunal heard a case involving a male-to-female transsexual, who responded to an advertisement from the Vancouver Rape Relief Society seeking volunteers to be trained as peer counsellors for rape victims. The clinic denied the applicant midway through training after it found out that she had undergone a sexual reassignment, as men are not allowed in such facilities.

After a series of legal proceedings, the Court of Appeal for British Columbia concluded in 2005 the applicant had not proven discrimination and the clinic “was entitled to exercise an internal preference in the group served, to prefer to train women who had never been treated as anything but female.”

Findlay explains the courts have exempted certain organizations that have been created to provide services targeted at women from certain human rights obligations. “In the past, it has been the case that some women-only spaces have asserted the right to exclude women who, as they say, weren’t born women,” findlay says. “So there are a small number of employers who can legally get away with saying to trans people, ‘You’re not welcome here.’”

“Those challenges can be addressed through awareness,” says Ron Puccini, senior manager of diversity at TD Bank Group’s corporate human resources department in Toronto. “The other aspect is respecting their right to privacy and confidentiality.”

While communication with existing staff to facilitate a smooth transition is key, a certain level of discretion can be exercised by informing people on a need-to-know basis, Dr. Brown suggests. For example, new hires do not need to know that a certain employee had just undergone a sex change.

The challenge, however, is that no two scenarios involving trans workers are the same, Puccini observes. He notes that the bank has put in place general guidelines on how to deal with such situations should they arise.

Another option is to enlist consultants in trans relations to meet with staff while the transitioning employee is away. This was what Elliott’s boss did when she was recovering from the surgery.

Susset notes that some of these information sessions she conducted have aided in normalizing workplace relations and paved the way to a smoother transition.

For Dr. Brown, being candid on the part of the affected worker also helps, as a culture of respect is often built on understanding. A worker’s willingness to share his or her story can build that bridge of empathy.

One also has to be prepared to deal with adverse reaction — even derision — from colleagues.

MEASURED STEPS Considering the various sensitive issues surrounding transgendered employees, what can be done to make the experience less traumatic from a workplace relations perspective?

IN HINDSIGHT Elliott remembers with crystal clarity her first day back on the job following the transformation.

“The biggest breakthrough for me were the pilots, whom I don’t see, but I talk to everyday. They started calling me ‘ma’am,’” she muses. “All they have got to go on is my voice, and they are calling me by the right gender. That was a huge boost to my confidence. So I would go home and I would count how many ‘ma’ams’ I got and how many ‘sirs’ I got from the pilots I was talking to during the day.”

These days, she is considered “just one of the girls” at work. Elliott shares her experience with the trans community to help prepare those who intend to embark on the same journey for what is to come.

“I would tell them that it is going to be difficult, to not expect miracles in that first week, you really have to wait up to two years before you can look back from where you were to where you are.”

While the process before going through transition may be arduous, Elliott says the road “will be equally, if not more difficult after your transition — until other people accept you, until you get more comfortable in your own skin.”

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Sabrina Nanji is editorial assistant of canadian occupational

health and safety news.

www.ohscanada.com

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image: thinkstock

multitasking

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Balancing Act

By Donalee Moulton Multitasking is a catchword that, through the years, has managed to creep into “management speak.” A closer look into the etymology of the word provides some insight into its origins and how it has established itself as the modus operandi of modern workplaces.

But does the ability to perform several tasks concurrently necessarily mean greater productivity, or can it put worker safety and well-being in jeopardy?

M

ultitasking, a term that originated from the technology sector, refers to the concurrent performance of several jobs by a computer switching from one programming task to another in a split second.

However, there is no clear agreement on what exactly constitutes multitasking. That ambiguity is reflected in a variety of new words that have been coined to describe the spectrum of behaviour that falls under this umbrella term.

At one end, there is task switching, which refers to the process of stopping and starting different activities, often quickly. At the other end is hyper-tasking — the drive to do as much as possible at all times whether at work, in front of the television or dining with colleagues.

At its core, multitasking is about doing several things simultaneously. However, human beings are not machines. Depending on the nature of work they perform, engaging in a few activities concurrently can jeopardize employee safety. As psychologist Glenda Morrissey points out, there is a signifi-

on the task they learned without distraction, but could not extrapolate for the task they learned when distracted. In scientific terms, their knowledge was much less “flexible,” demonstrating that multitasking participants had a reduced capacity to recall memories when placed in a different context, a statement from the university notes.

Many experts believe the pressure to do as much as possible at one time is increasing in the wake of the global economic slowdown. “Work isn’t divvied up like it used to be.

It is crisis management,” says Emil Mesic, chair of the Canadian Auto Workers’ union health and safety committee in Oakville, Ontario. “There is absolute pressure to get more done,” he adds. “People take that home with them. The pressure is relentless.”

Multitasking may seem to hold the promise — unfulfilled for the most part — of enhanced productivity, but that association is a myth, suggests David Strayer, a professor of cognition and neural science at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. “They are just ‘task switching’,” Strayer says, “and this increases the overall mental workload.”

Contrary to popular belief, it often takes longer to complete an assignment when multitasking.

“Workers who switch back and forth between two tasks take 50 per cent more time than working on them sequentially. This inefficiency increases with

Multitasking is not synonymous with enhanced productivity. cant difference in terms of scenario and risk between talking on a cell phone while waiting for a large photocopying job to finish and texting-and-driving. “It is about what is required of you mentally,” says Morrissey, founder of GM Psychological Services Incorporated in Truro, Nova Scotia.

The brain can only handle so much information and demand at one time. Eileen Pease, an author and owner of Dynamic Learning in Halifax, notes that while we have the ability to shift our attention in milliseconds, bringing into focus the full power of our frontal cortex to move from one task to another involves a four-step process. Even though these steps may only take fractions of a second, they have to be followed in sequence and require a lot of glucose and oxygen, which can cause one to tire quickly.

That means not all types of tasks, some of which may involve greater engagement of the mental faculty, are suited for multitasking, says Louise Chénier, network manager with The Council on Workplace Health and Wellness in Ottawa.

SIGN OF THE TIMES Previous research has shown that multitasking affects the brain’s learning systems, which makes learning less effective when distracted.

In a study published in 2006, researchers from the University of California in Los Angeles used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the brain activity of participants while they were learning a simple classification task using a set of cards. For the first set of cards, they learned without distraction; for the second set, they learned while listening to and keeping count of high-pitched beeps in a series of high and low beeps played through headphones.

Results demonstrated that participants did much better

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on the rise

Multitasking is considered to be a key characteristic of modern work. A paper published in 2009 by researchers from The Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Kiel, Germany found that multitasking has increased significantly over the years.

Using representative data for West Germany from 1986 to 2006, findings show that multitasking was already slightly rising throughout the late 1980s, but recorded the biggest jump after 1992. Changes in info-communication technology, the introduction of more versatile machinery and the broadening of human capital across skills through education and training were cited as contributing factors.

The study also concludes that there is such a thing called ‘multitasking premium’, meaning employers reward multitasking by compensating employees with a wider span of competence a higher wage.

Higher-educated workers perform significantly more tasks on average than their lower-educated counterparts: employees with tertiary education increased their level of multitasking from 2.2 to 6.6 tasks on average, while workers with primary education increased the level from 1.5 to 5.1, the study notes.

The correlation between education level and scope of multitasking can be attributed to two factors: better-educated employees have a higher ability to expand the number of tasks they perform, and they tend to work in jobs where there are more possibilities for multitasking to arise, the study adds.

the complexity of the tasks,” says Chénier, who is also a research associate with The Conference Board of Canada.

MORE IS LESS As the prevalence of multitasking increases — thanks in large part to the availability of technology — the pros and cons of this mode of operation is beginning to surface.

A recent study by The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio found that people are better at juggling some types of multitasking than they are at others. Doing two visual tasks simultaneously significantly compromises performance in both tasks — more than that which involves a visual and an audio task.

The study involved 32 college students, who were asked to complete a matching task on a computer screen showing two grids, each with nine cells containing random letters or numbers. Participants had to determine as quickly as possible whether or not the two grids were a match or mismatch by clicking a button on the screen, a statement from the university noted in July. The students were then asked to repeat the matching task while giving walking directions to a fellow college student, who they were told needed to get to an important job interview.

Half of the participants used instant messaging software to convey directions, while the rest used voice chat. Results showed that multitasking of any kind seriously impair performance, but participants who gave audio directions demonstrated a 30 per cent decline in visual pattern-matching performance, compared to a 50-per cent drop among those using instant messaging.

Zheng Wang, the study’s lead author and assistant professor of communication at The Ohio State University, compares the scenario used in the study to distracted driving.

Drivers who text and drive combine two visual tasks, while those who talk and drive marry a visual and an audio task.

“They’re both dangerous, but as both our behavioral performance data and eye-tracking data suggest, texting is more dangerous to do while driving than talking on a phone, which is not a surprise,” Wang says in the statement.

However, when participants were asked to rate how well they did on their tasks, those who used instant messaging gave themselves higher ratings than those who used audio chat. “People’s perception about how well they are doing doesn’t match up with how they actually perform,” Wang says. “It may be that those using IM [instant messaging] felt more in control because they could respond when they wanted without being hurried by a voice in their ears.”

Processing several streams of information in the visual channel may give people the illusion of efficiency. “They may perceive visual tasks as relatively effortless, which may explain the tendency to combine tasks like driving and texting,” Wang suggests.

DIVIDE AND CONQUER Research findings that indicate multitasking is not synonymous with enhanced productivity should come as no surprise, says Chris Hornberger, a partner with Halifax Global

“If the consequences can be (fatal) accidents, multitasking might be dangerous.”

fact or fiction Just exactly how productive is multitasking? Does juggling several tasks simultaneously necessarily translate into greater productivity or merely creates an illusion of it?

Tony Mancini, senior partner with Priority Management Atlantica, an organizational training firm based in Halifax, points to the following findings as proof that one step at a time pays bigger dividends: • only two per cent of people can multitask effectively — for 98 per cent, it causes more harm than good; • being distracted by incoming emails or calls lowers your IQ by 10 points; and, • trying to focus on more than one thing at a time lowers productivity by 40 per cent.

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Inc., a management consulting firm in Halifax. “You can’t focus well on more than one thing at a time.”

As multitasking is believed to under-utilize the brain structures necessary for learning, long-term memory and retention may be affected. “The constant switching between tasks affects a person’s ability to stay focused on one task and instead, divides the individual’s attention,” Chénier suggests.

“The consequence is that it makes it difficult for the person to stay focused for a long period of time.”

And the price of being distracted can cause severe injuries — even fatalities — for those in safety-sensitive positions performing high-risk jobs in hazardous environments, such as mining, construction and handling explosive substances.

Although repeatedly switching between tasks may make employees and their bosses feel like they have accomplished more, the feeling comes at a cost to both the organization and the employee concerned.

In a study published in 2010, researchers at the Institute for Work and Health of the German Social Accident Insurance in Dresden explored the connection between multitasking and mistakes made. Participants aged between 21 and 60 years were placed in work-related scenarios where they had to perform two tasks: a driving simulation and another task similar to that found in an office environment. The study,

which was published in Europe’s Journal of Psychology, concluded that multitasking at work can lead to errors and mental strain.

“Not only could this result in possible business losses, but it also has important implications for occupational health and safety,” the authors wrote. “In real-world working conditions, these mistakes might not only result in reduced performance, but also cause accidents and corresponding health consequences.”

The strain caused by continuous multitasking could also have a negative impact on the health of those involved. If the ability to concentrate diminishes as a result of multitasking, this can lead to an even higher error rate, the paper notes.

The exact effects of multitasking, however, are also dependent on the actual task itself. If a task can be automated and require less attention after some practice, it can be carried out simultaneously with another task. If automation is not possible, mistakes and mental strain will likely increase. “If the consequences can be (fatal) accidents, multitasking might be dangerous,” the paper concludes.

FOCUS, STAY SAFE Having employees focus on one issue at a time is good business, says CAW’s Emil Mesic. “This benefits the company.

They don’t want accidents. They don’t want absenteeism because of illness and accidents.”

Multitasking may also involve greater risk for workers who operate machinery or handle hazardous materials or chemicals. “If people try to multitask when operating heavy equipment, driving a car, or even walking, for example, [when] talking or texting on a phone, they put themselves at risk of causing harm to others or themselves,” says Strayer, who coauthored the article Supertaskers and the Multitasking Brain, published earlier this year in Scientific American Mind.

“It is linked to stress,” says Jeff Brett, occupational health and safety officer with the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union in Halifax. “If you have too many things coming at you, it is overwhelming.”

That stress, Brett adds, is often a reality of the modern workplace. “It tends to be an issue of cutbacks and servicedelivery models. Governments, in particular, are trying to cut costs. That’s laudable, but it takes a toll.”

Morrissey notes that bosses may inadvertently put pressure on their workers by communicating implicitly that multitasking is essential. “It’s a matter of expectations,” he suggests. “If the boss is a workaholic, they tend to have the same expectations of their employees. If employees don’t meet that expectation, it can lead to bullying and/or feelings of guilt.”

While technology may have been a great aid in accomplishing work tasks more efficiently, that may have come at the expense of employees. “You are never turning off,” Hornberger says. “There is no work-life balance. As a good employer, you need to recognize workers need a balance.”

right place, right time Multitasking does have a place in the modern work world, although Chénier notes its role is small. “Multitasking has been found to be effective when an employee has unpredictably changing deadlines.”

He adds that multitasking has also been proven to enhance the performance of individuals during virtual meetings.

Some researchers have even suggested that it can be effective if appropriate guidelines are in place. “These guidelines need to encompass technology and the degree to which employees use technology in their day-to-day lives,” Chénier advises.

To better organize work duties and accomplish as much as possible within a limited time frame, an assessment of the things that need to be done is in order. Tony Mancini, senior partner with Priority Management Atlantica, an organizational training firm based in Halifax, advises employees to identify high-priority work and schedule time to work on those activities without interruptions. “When not working on high-priority items, those are the times you allow the interruptions and maybe some multitasking,” he says.

Job design is one area on which employers should focus. “Time-sharing or task-splitting, which is performing multiple tasks simultaneously by distributing tasks across different group members, has been found to be more effective than multitasking,” Mancini suggests.

From an organizational perspective, rewarding multitasking would likely be counterproductive, suggests Strayer, although he notes that little things can make a difference.

“Instead of having emails interrupt you every five minutes, set delivery for once every hour so that you do not become a slave to email,” he recommends.

Balance seems to be at the heart of the issues raised by multitasking. As the paper by researchers from the Institute of Work and Health in Germany notes, “it is probably impossible to completely eliminate multitasking from the workplace and so, it makes sense to look closely at the situations in which multitasking is particularly critical.”

Two questions, they contend, that need to be answered are whether or not the task on hand can be automated and what are the possible consequences of mistakes.

Perspective is important too. “If the measurement of success for the day is to cross off as many items from the to-do list, then [multitasking] is the right approach,” Mancini says.

From a workplace safety point of view, focusing on the task at hand can lower the odds of a worker getting injured, or worse, killed as a result of human error or oversight.

As the saying goes, less is indeed more.

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Donalee Moulton is a writer in Halifax.

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secondary trauma

Lingering Shadows By jason contant For Bruce Kruger, the difficulties began shortly after he was forced to shoot and kill an escaped convict who was about to fire a shot at his partner, a young rookie police officer.

With a double-barrelled sawed-off shotgun pointed at him, the trapped officer was desperately trying to hide under the dash of his police cruiser when Kruger had to act.

Now a retired detective inspector with the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), the Bracebridge, Ontario resident does not want to talk about that fatal shooting on June 28, 1977 — one of many serious incidents he responded to during his 30-year career on the force that affected him psychologically and contributed to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

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image: illustration source - paul schulenburg

S

“

Relatively little is known about secondary traumatic stress or compassion fatigue.

lowly and in a very insidious way, I developed all the signs and symptoms of PTSD including severe depression, alcohol abuse, horrendous nightmares, relationship problems, night sweats and extreme anger,” Kruger wrote in his 2010 article PTSD — The Loneliest Injury in Policing!, posted on the website of Tema Conter Memorial Trust, a charitable organization in King City, Ontario.

“My mental state created severe difficulties for me. Imagine sitting in a house and going into extreme fear at the sight of a silhouette of a gunman entering the residence with a raised weapon — only to discover it was your elevenyear-old grandson carrying a hockey stick back from the rink.”

By the time he retired in 2000, Kruger had never spoken to anybody about his symptoms, which he says had become severe by then. He had thought that his situation would improve after he retired. “I was going to hide this and hopefully beat it on my own,” he adds.

For former paramedic Vince Savoia, the breaking point came after responding to the call of Tema Conter, who was brutally murdered on January 27, 1988 by a convicted serial killer placed in a halfway house near her midtown Toronto neighbourhood. “That call pretty well, looking back, psychologically broke me as an individual,” says Savoia, founder and director of the charity he started in Conter’s name.

Both Kruger and Savoia know first-hand the struggles associated with their own personal trauma. By contrast, relatively little is known about secondary traumatic stress or compassion fatigue, terms which have only appeared in literature since the mid-1990s.

Even experts in the field disagree on their distinct definitions and how the terms differ, although most describe them as similar to Venn diagrams with overlapping circles. “There is a need for all of us in the field to actually get together and agree on a working definition,” opines Françoise Mathieu, director of Compassion Fatigue Solutions in Kingston, Ontario and a mental health and crisis counsellor.

SHADES OF GREY For Mathieu, compassion fatigue refers to the gradual but profound emotional and physical exhaustion experienced by some caregivers and professionals who help, assist or counsel people.

However, it is a common misunderstanding that this condition affects only medical professionals, says Patricia Smith,

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founder of the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project in the San Francisco Bay area of California. The list of affected occupations is wideranging and includes social workers, journalists, lawyers, nurses, doctors, teachers, dentists, funeral directors, chaplains, psychologists, family caregivers and child advocates.

Dr. Anna Baranowsky, executive director of the Traumatology Institute in Toronto, describes compassion fatigue as a “secondary wound.”

By way of example, Smith says she used to do animal welfare work and was asked to put together a shelter-wide compassion fatigue project, including a self-test. It turned out that many of the workers who were not dealing with animals on the front lines, such as the executive director, administrative assistant, public relations representative and special events officer, had higher levels of compassion fatigue than the euthanasia technicians tasked with putting down the animals. “You just have to be in a caregiving environment to be at risk for compassion fatigue,” Smith says.

A job that exposes a worker to people in need and requesting assistance that is sometimes beyond the means of the worker, creates a real challenge, Mathieu suggests. “What we see is this shift in our view of the world and our ability to feel compassion and empathy for others,” she notes, adding that this numbing effect spills into the workers’ personal lives. red flags The warning signs that a worker may be suffering from compassion fatigue vary widely from individual to individual, but are similar to symptoms of chronic stress and overload, Mathieu notes.

For instance, a worker may suffer from insomnia and physical ailments, such as gastrointestinal problems, recurrent colds, migraines and heartburn. They may also self-medicate, suffer from depression, and feel irritable or have problems concentrating.

“People talk about a real loss of innocence,” Mathieu relates, citing her personal experience of hearing about events in Rwanda and feeling alienated from her family. “You go home and you had a barbeque or something and people are talking about stuff and you’re thinking to yourself, ‘You have no idea what I just saw today.’

Your view of the world is permanently changed.

Anyone who has worked with child abuse is never the same again.”

As the work scenarios faced by each individual are different, so too are the symptoms. Consider nurses, who could encounter critical incidents almost daily, notes Vicki McKenna, first vice-president of the Ontario Nurses’ Associ-

School of Hard Knocks

ation in Toronto. “What does that do to your psyche?” questions McKenna, who concedes that compassion fatigue is difficult to quantify.

“I know that’s not very tangible, but you can see it and feel it in some units or areas or organizations when you start interacting with people that work there.” The result is that some recent nursing graduates do not stay in the health care system very long due to the overwhelming demands, she contends.

Mathieu agrees the health care sector in particular is facing a real issue of retention, attrition and attracting new blood into the field.

However, she notes that there has been an “explosion of openness” towards the topic of compassion fatigue in the last decade.

Patricia Smith, the founder of the Compassion Fatigue Awareness Project in the San Francisco Bay area of California, believes in “post-traumatic growth.” The term refers to positive psychological change experienced as a result of struggling with highly challenging life circumstances. It also means that developing self-knowledge and insight, a sense of hope, healthy coping skills, strong relationships and personal perspective, can help build resilience and return a person to a healthy, functioning level.

“I don’t suffer from that traumatic experience in talking to others about their experiences, because I know that what AGREE TO DISAGREE I am providing is making a difference,” says Smith, who cites Unlike PTSD, which is listed in the the following tips for building resilience: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual • explore personal motivations for working with trauma of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edivictims and identify personal strengths and challenges; tion, there is currently no diag• change or expand job descriptions; nostic criterion for compassion • learn to identify physical stress reactions and defatigue, Dr. Baranowsky notes. velop relaxation techniques; and, She reports that a committee is • use technology and resources wisely, looking at whether or not there should keeping to essentials and refraining be diagnostic criterion for secondary from engaging in unnecessary traumatic stress types like compassion faphone or text messages). tigue, as opposed to primary stress condi-

tions, such as PTSD. “It is a set of symptoms, it is not a disease,” Smith says of compassion fatigue.

Dr. Baranowsky observes that there is a “latent vulnerability” in many of the caregivers. “In other words, they have had their own primary stress sometime in their past, something traumatic has impacted them and that latent vulnerability has made them more susceptible to these kinds of events in their career,” she explains. “This is not the case in every single caregiver, but certainly we do see that as a pattern.”

This often holds true for child welfare workers, notes Dr. Leslie Anne Ross, vice-president of the Leadership Center of the Children’s Institute Inc. in Los Angeles, which offers programs and services for children traumatized by violence, among other things.

“These students, as they learn about how to do child trauma work, they also learn about the impact of vicarious trauma,” a process in which a person is transformed by constantly listening to or responding to traumatic events. Dr. Ross says many of these students come into this field “because they have their own trauma history.”

Although experts in the field generally agree that compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress are interwoven, there is disagreement on the exact distinction between the terms. In fact, there is even debate

on whether or not a person can work in a caregiving environment without being impacted by it or developing some form of vicarious trauma.

“People who are truly caring individuals cannot do this work day in and day out and not be profoundly affected by it,” Mathieu argues, although he notes that compassion fatigue can be caught early and addressed. “Some people are more resilient than others and have more tools, but the idea that we can eradicate compassion fatigue, I think, is crazy,” he says. “It is a normal consequence of doing a good job.”

Dr. Ross is of the mind that a compassionate and empathetic person can be emotionally affected by the work without necessarily being adversely impaired by it.

And not everybody is affected in the same way. For Savoia, it all boils down to a worker’s perception of the job and the types of critical incidents they respond to. “I have known many doctors and nurses and paramedics and firefighters who have had very successful careers and not experienced PTSD or vicarious trauma,” he offers.

Savoia estimates the prevalence of PTSD in

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Morbid Numbers

For instance, a worker who deals with victims of sexual assault, incest and abuse may have intrusive images of that, Mathieu suggests.

Researchers at the University Symptoms could include hyper-arousal, of Kentucky in Lexington are innightmares and flashbacks of the event, social vestigating the incidence of suicide withdrawal and emotional numbing, Dr. Ross exposure and consequences of suicide notes. “If you have had trauma exposure, it inbereavement on veterans and military famcreases your risk because you are going to be ilies in the United States. re-exposed by doing some work that might Julie Cerel, principal investigator and associate be a reminder of your own trauma hisprofessor at the university’s College of Social Work, tory,” she adds. said in a statement on August 21 that there is limited Smith says she is discovering evidence to indicate that individuals exposed to suicide are that some people who work at risk for poor health outcomes, social and economic problems on the frontlines of particand suicidal thinking and behaviours. ular professions do not The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that a veteran have time to heal commits suicide about once every 80 minutes on average, acfrom what they counting for some 6,500 suicides per year or nearly 20 per en co u n ter cent of all suicides in the United States. In June, the Pentagon revealed that more active duty service members took their own lives in the first half of 2012 than those who died in combat.

the general population is about eight per cent, although research indicates that this percentage is two to three times higher — somewhere between 16 and 24 per cent — for workers in Canada’s emergency services sector.

Others, like himself, have a tendency to personalize incidents and may be adversely affected, he says, citing the Tema Conter call he attended more than two decades ago. “My partner is still on the job and he is enjoying every day of it. Same call, two different people, two different reactions,” Savoia observes. “I’m not saying he doesn’t care; he knows how to compartmentalize his job and personal life and he does that very effectively.”

CHIPPING AWAY To better understand the difference between compassion fatigue and secondary trauma, Mathieu cites a caregiver for someone at a very advanced stage of Parkinson’s disease. The caregiver is depleted and has grown tired and impatient — in other words, demonstrating classic signs of compassion fatigue.

On the other hand, a hearing officer at the Parole Board of Canada whose job is to read files before a hearing may not necessarily have compassion fatigue, but could have trauma from “repeatedly being exposed to stories and photos of abuse. But a nurse working at a long-term care facility, she may not have secondary trauma at all,” Mathieu illustrates.

The symptoms of secondary traumatic stress can overlap with those of compassion fatigue, but there can be some common distinctions.

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on a daily basis. Consider a coroner, who not only witnesses death, but must also review files and images of a variety of fatalities. “Can you imagine every day looking at pictures from a coroner’s office of a traumatic death, such as a shooting or a gang-related thing?” Smith asks.

“You never heal from that.” getting personal Sometimes, professionals can also encounter a work scenario where the victim reminds them of someone they intimately know, such as an emergency room nurse caring for a severely injured child reminiscent of the caregiver’s own flesh and blood. Dr. Baranowsky says that type of secondary wound can be very traumatizing to the worker.

Wayne Chacun, a paramedic who responds to incidents in Virden, Manitoba, knows all about providing treatment to people he personally knows in the town of about 3,000 people.

Chacun, who is also a member of the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union, says staying detached to some degree has helped him deal with the stresses of his job. “You go to work on somebody and they may not survive, but you see their family members all the time or you may have known them, they may be your neighbour,” he says.

Chacun used to be part of a critical incident stress debriefing team, but he says he “went off that because one of the things I found was when I went and heard how they felt on calls all the time, it started to negatively impact me.”

What has helped, Chacun says, is being able

to access a psychologist through his employee assistance plan. “There is always this stereotype of showing weakness and not wanting people to think you are not able to handle the job, when in actuality, this is one of the ways to handle the job and help you deal with it and stay in the career longer,” he argues.

COPING MEASURES With regards to compassion fatigue, Dr. Baranowsky says there is something about it that is “softer” than diagnosing an individual with PTSD. “We want to always give the professional their sense of empowerment and not take that away, give them the sense that they are always in a position where they can make sense of his, make good sense of the work they do because we don’t really want to lose these very valuable people in our field,” she says.

Fortunately, there are various coping strategies and organizational changes that can be implemented to help minimize the effects of secondary traumatic stress or compassion fatigue.

For compassion fatigue particularly, Mathieu says working part-time, job sharing or combining two jobs so that a person is not doing frontline work all the time can help. Giving staff flexibility over their schedule, such as allowing them to choose shifts or stop in the middle of a work day to drop off a child before coming back to work can also benefit.

Social support, regardless of whether that is offered through an employee assistance plan, colleagues or family members and friends, is key. Mathieu acknowledges that compassion fatigue does affect morale, which can result in coworkers turning on each other. “That creates a toxic work environment,” she cautions, noting the irony of social support in this context. “How can you support each other if you are all backbiting each other all the time?”

For secondary trauma, Dr. Ross recommends that employees who may be at risk conduct a self-assessment and keep a look out for training opportunities. They should also consult someone who is trained in the field of secondary trauma to identify risk factors, symptoms and triggers to help establish an individual strategy.

Savoia adds that workers can also adopt preventive coping strategies — such as ensuring that they remain physically and psychologically healthy, eating the right foods, learning about signs and symptoms — before that bad call comes their way.

“A lot of the emergency service responders react to this as a reaction to an event as opposed to pre-planning for it,” Savoia says. He advises that workers should try to do some physical activity within 24 hours of an incident to help

burn off the extra adrenaline in their system.

Other strategies include avoiding alcohol and drugs, including stimulants like caffeine; having access to a timely and thorough debriefing when there has been a critical event; praying, meditating or yoga; getting back into a normal routine; and considering the option of using prescribed medications to aid sleep if experiencing symptoms, such as flashbacks.

BABY STEPS For Kruger, things have come a long way since he shot and killed the escapee in 1977. At that time, “my counselling consisted of a supervisor telling me not to brag about it,” he recounts.

Progress, however, has been painstakingly slow. By 1984, the OPP had started a peer support program for stress. Kruger recalls contacting a peer counsellor, but was warned that the process was not confidential.

“I didn’t want to be humiliated, embarrassed, I didn’t want to lose my opportunities at promotion, I didn’t want to be stigmatized with a mental illness,” he says. It was only a few years ago that Kruger received treatment at the Homewood Health Centre, a well-known treatment facility in Guelph, Ontario.

Mathieu points out that when she became interested in the issue of compassion fatigue 12 years ago, there were only three books and one workshop on the topic. In the last decade, more and more people have become receptive to the condition, although she concedes that in law enforcement, “we are just barely started.”

That slow progress is now being addressed by the Ontario ombudsman. In March of 2011, the ombudsman reported that an investigation will be conducted into the OPP’s handling of operational stress after Kruger filed a complaint with the support of 29 officers. The ombudsman’s report was expected to be released in mid-October.

“We have got to bring this out of the closet and into the open, and that is why I insisted I go ahead with this complaint,” Kruger says. “They have ignored the total devastation this is doing to so many officers and many officers have committed suicide due to PTSD,” he charges.

The release of the ombudsman’s report has gotten the ball rolling for PTSD compensation, but what will happen with compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress remains to be seen, as both have only just appeared as a blip on the radar.

“He knows how to compartmentalize his job and personal life."

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Jason Contant is managing editor of ohs canada.

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SAFETY GEAR

Respirators

Breath of Life

By Jason Contant

O

ne only needs to look back at the deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Quebec City this past summer to appreciate the importance of the latest Canadian Standards Association (CSA) standard on respiratory protection, which has been expanded to include protection against bioaerosols and infectious agents.

Since the outbreak began on July 31, 13 people have died from more than 180 confirmed cases of the disease, Quebec’s regional public health agency reported in mid-September.

The situation prompted a widespread inspection, sampling and disinfection of 100 building cooling towers that were believed to be responsible for the outbreak in Quebec City.

Legionnaires’ disease is caused by bacterium that develops at temperatures between 25 and 42 degrees Celsius. This temperature range, found in the cooling towers of buildings, is optimal for the growth of the bacterium, the health agency reports in a statement. A form of pneumonia, people get legionella by breathing in small droplets of water containing the bacteria from sources, such as a cooling tower, hot tub, “The level of shower or water fountain. respiratory That is where the CSA’s latest Z94.4 standard, Selection, Use and Care of Resprotection pirators, comes into play. The scope of the standard, published last August, has depends on been broadened to protect against bioaerosols and infectious agents like bactethe concenria, viruses and fungi.

“The medical community used to tration of the have to use, ideally, an industrial stanhazard.” dard for their respiratory protection needs. Now, the standards are expanded to include them [health care professionals] because they are such an important demographic,” says Manish Gupta, market manager at Draeger Safety Canada Ltd. in Mississauga, Ontario. “Rather than just saying to them ‘use an N95,’ it helps them to actually choose the right respirator in the right circumstances and the right situations.”

Part of that selection process now includes a control banding method for bioaerosols with no occupational exposure limits, a generic technique that helps employers and workers choose an appropriate respirator when the type of work they perform does not have a clear assigned protection factor, says Stacy Richardson, technical service representative for negative-pressure respiratory protection with 3M Canada in London, Ontario.

“The control banding model is really there to be used in the absence of information, in the absence of regulations,” says Ron Meyers, project manager with CSA Group in Toronto, who notes the risk assessment for infectious agents

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must be done by a qualified person. “When you are dealing with bioaerosols, you have to go about it from a different perspective or approach than when you are dealing with chemicals, where you have exposure limits and things in place to guide you in your selection.”

A GUIDING HAND The first step in the selection process is establishing whether or not the workplace in question is a health care facility, followed by determining what the bioaerosol is. “This is where it can be tricky for people,” Richardson suggests.

Once the infectious agent has been identified, the risk group (the nature of the hazard and availability of treatment), generation rate (from human release, activities or equipment) and control level (ventilation) should be considered, as per section 7.3.2.3 of the CSA’s Z94.4 standard.

Meyers reports the standard’s technical committee will meet this year to review the control banding method. “These standards are living documents and as more information becomes available, there is going to be a need to revisit the standard and make any necessary adjustments to the model based on new information,” he suggests.

Meyers says the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail, a research organization in Montreal, has been working on a similar method. “You may not have all the information at your disposal at this point, so you take more of a precautionary approach and that can often lead to some controversy. That has always been a challenge — to defend some of the decisions made,” he adds.

As the standard is voluntary, some jurisdictions have included it in their provincial or territorial occupational health and safety regulations, while others have excluded it altogether or reference older versions. “The best bet is to follow the newest standard because it is usually the best practice,” Richardson advises.

The latest edition has also updated fit-testing protocols, addressed respirator interference concerns and revised training requirements, says Kerin Sparks, strategic business manager for the Canadian first responder market with Mine Safety Appliances Company in Toronto.

“The one major trend that needs continuous improvement is to ensure a proper respiratory program is in effect within the workplace,” notes Sparks, who is also a member of CSA Z94.4’s technical committee. “This will ensure that workers are properly equipped to perform their duties in a safe manner.”

To select the appropriate respirator for the workplace, an assessment that determines potential respiratory hazards needs to be performed by a qualified person. Most major manufacturers can aid in this process and some have online tools specifically for this purpose, Sparks notes.

“It’s almost a bit of a backwards process; you first have to

photos: clockwise from lower left - 3M, msa, draeger.

look at the contaminants you have in your workplace,” Gupta says. “You try to get rid of them through engineering controls and if that doesn’t work, then you will try and look at different respirator options that are out there,” he adds. the right choice There are two types of respirators: air-purifying respirators (APRs) and supplied-air respirators (SARs). The first type removes contaminants in the air by filtering out particulates, such as dusts, metal fumes and mists or by adsorbing gases or vapours in a cartridge or canister, notes information from the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety in Hamilton, Ontario.

An SAR supplies clean air from a compressed air tank or through an airline, with a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) being an example.

Selection of respiratory protective gear not only depends on the type and concentration of a contaminant in the workplace, but also on other factors, including temperature.

For example, a worker in a hot area may choose to use a powered APR “because it provides the user with a positive flow of air, which can give the perspective of cooler air,” Richardson offers. In situations where protection of the eye, face and respiratory system is required, a worker may go with a powered air purifying respirator or a suppliedair respiratory system.

If hydrogen sulphide (H2S) is a concern, workers now have the option to use an APR. Prior to approval of the latest respiratory protection standard from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Washington, D.C., workers were required to only don the heavier SAR. Marty Lorkowski, global marketing manager responsible for industrial safety with Scott Safety in Monroe, North Carolina, says this change offers two main benefits: a reduction in costs and bulkiness of the equipment. However, “the negative that comes with it [is] ensuring your environment is a known environment,” Lorkowski says of the APR option.

With an SCBA, “you are covered right up to and past the ‘immediately dangerous to life or health’ level, so if there is any variance in your exposure level, the SCBA or [SAR] will ensure that you are protected the whole time,” he adds.

If the hazards are unknown, users should default to an SCBA, which offers the highest level of protection. Lorkowski reports that a lot of workers use an SCBA, even though they now have the option of using a SAR. WHILE IT LASTS Although APRs can be used in environments with H2S, Lorkowski warns of fluctuations of the gas in workplaces, such as oil production facilities or refineries.

“When you get those fluctuations, you could get to a hazard level or exposure level that is higher than what your cartridge should be used for,” he cautions.

Potentially compounding the problem is an environment like the oil fields in Alberta, where H2S may be present with other compounds, such as benzene, xylene, toluene or other organic vapours.

Richardson says while workers often understand the need for a chemical cartridge-type respirator, they may not be cognizant of the fact that the level of respiratory protection depends on the concentration of the hazard, citing the need for air sampling tests.

“That is the only way you are going to be able to determine how long that cartridge will last and therefore, make a change-out schedule,” she says, citing the example of a work site with sulphur dioxide hazards that equipped its workers with full-face respirators for six months until Supplied air respirators engineering controls (left) and air-purifying were in place to get respirators (bottom right) concentrations beare used in different low permissible exenvironments. Fitposure limits. testing (bottom left) is But calculating the an important part of service life of a carrespiratory protection. tridge in a workplace with multiple hazards can be challenging, Lorkowski notes.

While most major manufacturers provide online service life calculation tools for different cartridges, each cartridge is unique and built using the technology specific to that manufacturer. As such, Richardson recommends using the software from the same manufacturer that produces the cartridge. emerging trends In fact, there is an increased emphasis and focus on innovation and product advancement within the powered and supplied-air market, says Marc Hurley, powered and supplied air marketing supervisor with 3M Canada in Edmonton. He notes that 3M recently launched several new products under its Versaflo product family to meet the needs of the industry.

Another consideration is the correlation between temperature, humidity and work rate and how that influences the life of a cartridge. “The higher the temperature, the quicker it may run out,” Richardson explains, adding that a higher work rate may have a similar wear-down effect.

There are also end-of-service-life indicators, but Richardson reports that, at present, they are only available for mercury and chlorine. “Until end-of-service-life indicator technology is commonplace in the industry, it is imperative that we understand our concentrations and do a proper change-out schedule,” she advises.

One significant change in the latest edition of CSA Z94.4 is that, unlike its earlier version, it prohibits a contaminant’s

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OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012

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photos: clockwise from lupper left - draeger, scott safety.

warning properties to be relied upon as a means of indication the notification of their low-pressure warning alarms. It alfor a cartridge change-out. lows for indications to the end-user at incremental points “Should workers detect odour or experience any irritation before pressure decays to 25 per cent and goes into full alarm, symptoms of the contaminant before the end of the change- Sparks explains. This requirement came into effect when the out schedule, the respirator program administrator shall be NFPA 1981 standard was revised in 2002. Gupta says a new informed and shall re-evaluate this respirator use, i.e., the NFPA standard is expected to be released next year. change-out schedule, the workplace conSCBAs rely on 30-, 45-, and 60-minute cylincentrations or other conditions of use [relders. The 45-minute cylinder, operating at a presative humidity (RH), work rate, etc.],” the sure of 4,500 pound-force per square inch gauge standard notes.

(PSIG), is the typical operating system being deAnother major addition is an annex feaployed in the field, Sparks reports. “This allows for turing facial hair illustrations to provide better reserve air options for the first responder guidance for program administrators, suand is increasing the safety factor for both thempervisors, fit-testers and users. selves and their team members,” he adds.

“We decided to add some of these picScott Safety’s Marty Lorkowski says his comtures to help clarify what is acceptable and pany released in late August a 5,500 PSIG cylinder unacceptable in terms of facial hair, because that offers 75 minutes of air time. “It’s getting you that has always been an issue,” Meyers says, closer to a true hour,” considering such factors as adding the standard also addresses conwork rate. A company statement notes cerns over respirator interference related to the cylinders provide up to an 11 per jewellery — even creams. cent reduction in profile and up to The actual standard “is still as it always 15 per cent reduction in weight to was, which was to make sure that people reduce user fatigue. have no facial hair where the tight-fitting A half-mask air-purifying In other developments, a longrespirator seals to the skin or face or respirator (above) filters out life composite type cylinder, particulates; one manuneck,” Richardson adds. lasting between 15 and 30 years, Gupta agrees that facial hair is still one facturer has developed is now available. The standard of the most contentious issues surround- a 75-minute cylinder for carbon steel and aluminum cyling respiratory protection. “We ran into SCBAs (right). inders used to last only approxithat with prison guards who had beards mately 15 years. their whole lives and were suddenly told to shave and With improved technolcomplained that their own wives wouldn’t recognize ogy comes the risk of over-rethem if they had to shave,” Gupta relates. liance, Gupta cautions, citing “People made it sound like a very simple, trivial the example of firefighters, thing, but forgot about the emotional part — this is a who will now require maintenance very, very big deal for somebody,” he argues. plans to replace batteries for the SCBAs. “The technology has improved so much we have forgotten ON THE HORIZON about things like batteries and keeping things powered up,” Besides updating the standard, the technology of some respi- he suggests. rators has also improved considerably.

Unfortunately, such oversights can prove catastrophic — Take for example the heads-up displays for SCBAs that even potentially fatal — for those dealing with hazards posed meet the National Fire Protection Association’s NFPA 1981: by infectious diseases, particulates and chemicals.

Standard on Open-Circuit Self-Contained Breathing ApparaFollow us on Twitter @OHSCanada tus (SCBA) for Emergency Services. The standard is directed at SCBAs used in the fire service to assist first responders with Jason Contant is managing editor of ohs canada.

Fit for Fit-Testing Stacy Richardson, technical service representative for negative-pressure respiratory protection with 3M Canada in London, Ontario, reports that respirator fit-testing sections of the Canadian Standards Association’s newest CSA Z94.4 standard have been beefed up considerably.

For example, a 30-second exercise has been added to the standard’s mandatory qualitative respirator fit test annex. It requires the user to bend at the waist (if space permits) while keeping the head and back parallel to the floor, repeating the movement at a comfortable pace and pausing long enough to inhale twice at each extreme position. Users are also required to sanitize fit-testing hoods between tests, “a small, subtle change” that may be overlooked, Richardson adds.

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“In the actual language of the standard, they have increased a lot of language around competency,” she opines, pointing out that fit-testers must ensure the people they are fit-testing are competent. “It was always kind of known that when you fit-test somebody, you have got to make sure they know how to put it on and take it off and do their user seal checks, but now you have to document it.”

Manish Gupta, market manager at Draeger Safety Canada Ltd. in Mississauga, Ontario, adds the standard now provides prerequisites for setting up a fit-testing station. “Before, you could throw together a fit-testing type station in your garage.” Now, information is provided on what is required for cleaning and disinfecting the respirators, he says.

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ERGONOMICS

Patient Transportation

Smooth Descent

By Greg Burchell

P

aramedics on Canada’s West Coast can now lay their burdens down — literally — when it comes to transporting patients up or down a flight of stairs.

In an effort to help curb musculoskeletal injuries (MSIs), the BC Ambulance Service (BCAS) equipped all of its ambulances with new tracked stair chairs this past April. Unlike the old stair chairs, which were metal frames with two wheels at the rear and a set of handles at the front and back, the new units are fitted with tracks that enable them to glide down the stairs, reducing the risk for strains and exertions.

“With the current design, that force is transferred down through the track system to the ground, alleviating some of the force requirements on the paramedics so they wouldn’t experience so much loading on the back or shoulders,” says Dr. Steven Fischer, assistant professor of biomechanics at Queen’s University’s School of Kinesiology and Health Studies in Kingston, Ontario.

In the past, two paramedics would have to lift up the cotstyle stair chair on which the patient is seated, balancing their own weight and that of the chair while navigating through stairwells, which can be narrow, dirty or dimly-lit.

“The patient is elevated in the air so you get that unbalanced feeling, and if they reached out and grabbed something, it would throw the paramedic off,” says Corey Viala, provincial safety director for the Ambulance Paramedics of BC (Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 873) in Richmond, British Columbia. Viala also sits on the ambulance service’s oh&s procurement committee.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS The chairs were first considered a few years ago, when BCAS — which oversees all emergency service operations in the province — acquired 20 units and put them on the busiest ambulances in the province to see if there was a quantifiable improvement in MSIs, reports Norm Matheson, superintendent with the BCAS. “The time period was too short to see any measurable decrease in MSIs that may or may not have been as a result of the stair chairs,” Matheson says. Hence, an ergonomist was contracted to conduct a study comparing the stair chair with the stair cot that had been in use since the 1980s.

The ergonomist concluded the new-style tracked stair chair would be a “significant improvement for our staff to use and would significantly decrease the risk of MSIs while moving people down the stairs,” says Matheson, who also thinks the new additions are an improvement from the old units, which had awkwardly-placed handholds.

Based on the ergonomist’s recommendation, BCAS ordered 500 tracked stair chairs — enough for every ambulance in its fleet. All 3,500 paramedics in the province were

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also given a 45-minute training course on basic lifting, use on stairs and loading and unloading into the ambulance.

Recent claim numbers for paramedics serve as an indication of the physical toll associated with the job. Paramedics in British Columbia filed more than 2,000 claims related to back and other strains, dislocations and fractures, and tendonitis and other related injuries from 2007 to 2011. This translates to more than $19 million in claims and exceeded 100,000 days lost, notes information from WorkSafeBC. With the new stair chairs, paramedics are essentially rolling or sliding their patients down the stairs. “Biomechanically, that is huge as far as loading the body” is concerned, says Dr. Steven Lavender, associate professor of integrated systems engineering at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. “If you’re not having to carry [a patient] down the stairs — and keep in mind, as you go through a landing there’s some manipulation there that also occurs — your back muscles and your biceps are working a lot less,” he adds.

In some cases, the stair chairs have enabled paramedics to improve their carrying posture, which “helps them keep a A Closer look at loads A series of studies, published in 2002 by Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, looked at eight paramedics between 20 and 47 years old using six types of stair chairs, one of which had tracks. The six stair chair designs were evaluated with respect to three different carrying positions.

The studies found that stair chair type, position, task and the interaction between chair and paramedic “all had a significant effect upon spinal stress and variables compromising the relative risk of low back disorder,” but the tracked chair had significantly lower compression values and reduced the probability of lower back disorder.

The studies also noted that stair chair designs that require the leading paramedic descend the stairs facing forward reduced biomechanical loads on the body.

Similar findings were yielded in a follow-up to those studies presented in 2006, which looked at ten male emergency services workers aged between 20 and 39 years using two types of tracked stair chairs. The study compared different designs — varying by weight, track angle, handle height and adjustability — in relation to the biomechanical stresses placed on the bodies.

Like the 2002 studies, both tracked designs put the operator at the front of the chair walking down the stairs backwards at a higher risk of developing a lower back disorder than the operator at the rear of the chair walking forwards — an indication that further improvements can be made to reduce the impact stair chairs have on the body.

more neutral-oriented posture where possible,” suggests Dr. Lavender, also a certified professional ergonomist.

A WEIGHTY MATTER In a 2008 study conducted by Dr. Lavender, 11 two-person teams of firefighters and paramedics, who were hooked up to sensors attached to eight trunk muscles, transported a 75-kilogram (kg) dummy down a flight of steps. Four methods were used to transfer patients down, one of which was the tracked stair chair. Dr. Lavender says findings indicate that tracked stair chairs do create an increased load on the triceps from having to slow down during the descent, but chair types had no noticeable impact on the quadriceps.

While most stair chair testing was done with the 75-kg mannequin, his team did some pilot tests with occupant weights of up to 136 kg. “A heavier patient does increase the effort, but it is not as much as you’d think,” he says. With the tracked stair chairs, “what you find is that you are not carrying the weight; you’re just slowing the descent of that weight, and that’s a huge benefit.”

Viala says stair chairs are sturdier and more stable, as the tracks sit flat across three or four steps. The belting system also allows a patient’s weight to be supported on the stairs. However, he notes that they are five kilograms heavier than the old chair cots. “But that’s only with taking the units out of the cars as opposed to actually using them to remove a patient.”

As well, the tracked chairs lose the advantage over the old models when paramedics have to transfer a patient against

gravity. As the chairs have a friction brake to prevent them from careening down the stairs if the paramedic loses his grip, they cannot be pulled up the stairs and must be carried just like the old units — with the extra weight of the tracks.

Fortunately, Dr. Lavender reports the first responders he had spoken with say basement evacuations are rare. “If somebody doesn’t feel well, where do they go? They go upstairs and lay on their bed. And then they decide they better call 911. That’s where the EMS guys find them,” he offers.

Although the study looked at first responders in suburban areas, urban areas with more high-rise apartment buildings would likely have similar results, he adds.

The limited space inside an emergency vehicle and the infrequency of ascending with a patient makes the stair chairs an easy choice, Lavender suggests. The units are also equipped with a handle at the top that extends away from the chairs.

This gives the paramedic, who is likely walking backwards, more distance and reduces the chance of tripping.

With regards to the impact the stair chairs will have on reducing MSIs, Dr. Fischer says that information is still a few years down the road. “To know how those trends are progressing is difficult, because the data we are accessing is three or four years old. It takes time for the injury to develop and go through the process,” he adds.

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Greg Burchell is assistant editor of canadian occupational health and safety news.

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OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012

49

HEALTH WATCH

Diabetes

Taking Over The Reins

By Jean Lian

A

recent study finding that women with low job control are at greater risk of diabetes may shed light on this growing health concern in Canada.

For nine years, the study followed 7,443 actively employed (but not self-employed) 35- to 60-year-olds in Ontario who had no previous diagnosis of diabetes. Researchers at the Institute for Work & Health (IWH) and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) in Toronto drew on data from the 2000-2001 Canadian Community Health Survey.

Findings indicate that low job control may be an important modifiable risk factor in reducing the occurrence of diabetes among women. The proportion of cases of diabetes among women that could be attributed to low job control was 19 per cent — higher than that for other health behaviours, such as smoking, drinking, lack of physical activity and unhealthy eating, but Women lower than that for obesity at 42 per cent.

“Increasing levels of job control for with women at work, such as providing autonomy over the way they do their jobs, along low job with improving health behaviours, should be considered as part of a comprehensive di- control are abetes prevention strategy,” Dr. Peter Smith, a scientist with IWH and the study’s lead au- at greater thor said in a statement on August 21. risk of Psychosocial work stress influences the risk of diabetes by disrupting the functiondiabetes. ing of the neuroendocrine and immune systems, increasing or prolonging the release of the stress hormone cortisol and effecting changes in health behaviour patterns — particularly those related to diet and energy expenditure — possibly as coping mechanisms.

However, low job control does not seem to have an effect on the risk of diabetes among men.

“It is curious there would be a gender difference,” says Dr. Wendy Robbins, professor and co-ordinator of women’s studies at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton.

“Women do cluster into certain job categories and they are often the ones in sales, clerical, that sort of thing,” she notes.

Another surprising finding is the protective effect of low social support on diabetes risk among women. Dr. Cam Mustard, president of the IWH and a study co-author, says it is not unusual in epidemiological research to show a pattern or association that does not make sense. “Our obligation as a research organization is to report what we found, but I personally need to see this particular relationship documented again and again before I would believe it,” he says.

While past research has examined the relationship between psychosocial work environment and hypertension and heart disease, relatively few studies to date have examined the

50 O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 2 ohs canada

link between psychosocial work conditions and diabetes.

A recent review in this area identified six prospective studies that have examined this relationship. Of these, only two samples looked at both men and women.

One study found no relationship between incident diabetes and job control, job demands or social support over a nine- to 14-year follow-up among men or women. However, later papers reported a relationship between high job strain and low social support and incident diabetes among women, but not among men over a 13-year period. The second study, based on a community sample in Sweden, established a stronger relationship between job control and social support and an increased incidence of diabetes over a 10-year follow-up period among women, but not among men.

“Taken together, these studies suggest that iso-strain [high job strain] may be an important psychosocial determinant of diabetes risk, in particular among women, although findings to date have been mixed,” the Toronto study concludes.

RISING INCIDENCE The latest study findings may have resonance, considering the rising prominence of this chronic disease across Canada.

In Ontario, the prevalence of diabetes in 2005 had already surpassed the forecasted global rate for the year 2030, almost doubling between 1995 and 2005, the IWH statement notes.

Prevalence in the province went up 69 per cent in the decade from 1995 to 2005 and hiked 31 per cent in the six years between 1997 and 2003.

Dr. Jan Hux, chief scientific advisor with the Canadian Diabetes Association in Toronto, says both incidence (development of new cases) and prevalence (total number of cases in a population at a specific time) are on the rise. “How can prevalence be going up faster than new cases? The reason is actually a good news story,” suggests Dr. Hux, citing declining mortality rates as the driving force that pushes up prevalence.

She uses the analogy of a swimming pool, in which the number of people with diabetes are staying longer (prevalence), while those who have been diagnosed with the condition (incidence) are entering the pool. “So it really is a diabetes epidemic in Canada.”

Other contributing factors include lifestyle behavior, such as increased obesity, a shift towards sedentary lifestyles and changing demographics. Immigrants of Asian descent and Hispanics belong to a very high risk group for diabetes. “Once they adopt a Canadian lifestyle, [the risk] becomes even higher,” Dr. Hux adds.

Dr. Richard Glazier, one of the study’s co-authors and a senior scientist at ICES, notes that it is important to identify modifiable factors that might influence the risk of this disease in women. “While our study shows that high body mass index is probably the most important risk factor, low job control among women also plays an important role in

diabetes risk,” he adds.

The level of job control is determined by five factors, namely the requirement to learn new things, the level of skill involved, task repetitiveness and how much autonomy and say one has in a job.

Dr. Mustard cites a personal support worker in a longterm care facility as an example of an occupation with low job control. A nurse, on the other hand, has a high level of skill and considerable autonomy in how she discharges her caregiving duties.

ENVIRONMENT COUNTS Dr. Hux thinks the findings of the Toronto study are both fascinating and startling. “I think it really adds to the growing body of evidence around the environmental risks for diabetes,” she opines.

“A lot of emphasis has been placed on the personal lifestyle choices people make that may or may not contribute to diabetes and that’s at one level helpful,” Dr. Hux adds, noting that it empowers people to take control of their health condition. “But I think we have gone so strongly as a medical profession with that story that we really are missing the equally important factor of the environment in which people live.”

The link between environmental factors and diabetes risk was established in a study by ICES in 2007. Neighbourhoods in the northwest and east ends of Toronto, which had lower average annual household income levels and high proportions of residents from a visible minority group and/or who had recently immigrated to Canada, had the highest rates of diabetes. In contrast, the south central part of Toronto and the downtown core had a lower incidence of diabetes.

“The physical features of urban environments are increasingly being recognized as important determinants of health.

Neighbourhoods in which walking is difficult and cars are needed for daily activities may contribute to low levels of physical activity and subsequently, to obesity and its consequences, such as diabetes,” the ICES study notes.

If job control qualifies as one of the environmental factors that can have an effect on health, what does that mean for employers and workers alike? “I think this study brings us a greater appreciation that the environment is also responsible for the growth in diabetes and that employers can take important steps to reduce that risk, particularly for women who work for them,” Dr. Hux offers.

A supportive work environment allows diabetic employ-

ees to manage their health condition. This would involve testing their blood sugar frequently and responding to that testing by having a snack or taking medication, and providing the privacy to administer insulin injections, Dr. Hux notes.

Julie Macvoy, a nurse practitioner and owner of Healthy Workplace Consulting in Windsor, Ontario, takes the finding with a pinch of salt. “The concern I have with that conclusion, though, is the duty to accommodate,” says Macvoy, who thinks that duty has tipped too much to one end of the scale.

For Dr. Robbins, the study poses more questions. “Do we need to get women out of those jobs, or do we need to help women change their understanding of those jobs that is putting stress on that?”

Macvoy, who notes that genetics is a high predictor for diabetes, says she always encourages her diabetic patients to disclose their medical condition to their employer or a coworker. “They have the responsibility to make sure they are keeping their sugars within control, so for someone like a truck driver, I would expect that they are taking their medications, seeing their doctor regularly because that can be quite a dangerous occupation.”

The only real accommodation that employers need to provide for diabetic employees, especially those who are insulindependent, revolves around shift work, which can disrupt the body’s circadian rhythm and the release of blood sugar and insulin at a certain time. If the sugar level of diabetic employees are not controlled well, Macvoy suggests taking these employees off the shift until their sugar level stabilizes.

For newly-diagnosed diabetics, a health care professional can help the employee review the physical demands of the job and whether or not it involves high risk tasks. Macvoy also advises diabetic workers to always carry a hypoglycemic agent, such as gluco-gel or a chocolate bar.

Although the study identifies the possibility that there may be a causal relationship between low job control and a heightened risk of diabetes among women, Dr. Mustard says he did not “think the evidence is strong enough to recommend to employers that the prevention of diabetes involves redesign of work to increase job control.”

Macvoy thinks that employers need to look at job control as a whole, because “a happy worker is a healthy worker. That is the message that is consistent throughout.”

Follow us on Twitter @OHSCanada

Jean Lian is editor of ohs canada.

Safety at Stake Information from the Canadian Diabetes Association in Toronto indicates that more than nine million Canadians are living with diabetes, which comes in three main types: • Type 1 diabetes, usually diagnosed in children and adolescents, occurs when the pancreas is unable to produce insulin, a hormone that controls the amount of glucose in the blood; • Type 2 diabetes, which occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or does not effectively use the insulin produced, make up the majority of cases; and, • Gestational diabetes, a temporary condition that occurs during pregnancy.

Employees who hold safety-critical jobs are required to

have full and unimpaired control of their physical and mental abilities. In particular, Health and Safety Executive, the United Kingdom’s workplace safety regulator, identifies the following health conditions that can put a safety-sensitive worker at risk: • sudden loss of consciousness (for example, epilepsy, some heart conditions and diabetes, particularly insulindependent diabetes); • impaired awareness or concentration; • sudden incapacity; • impaired balance or coordination; • restricted mobility; and • impaired vision or hearing.

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OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012

51

ACCIDENT PREVENTION

Laser beams

Seeing the Light ONE FOR ALL: From Hollywood blockbusters to mundane everyday objects, such as barcode readers and laser printers, this intense beam of bright light has lent itself to many uses.

From eye surgery, tattoo removal and cutting machines to advanced weapons systems, laser technology can be found in the automotive, construction, retail, welding, manufacturing and shipbuilding sectors.

WHAT IT IS: Laser, which was first developed in the 1960s, is an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. It is generated when a power source — usually electric — is used to excite a lasing material, which can be solid (like ruby or garnet), gaseous (such as helium or carbon dioxide) or liquid (for example, organic dyes).

The resultant light bounces back and forth between a pair of mirrors, becomes amplified and is emitted as a beam with many applications, notes information from WorkSafeBC in Richmond, British Columbia.

For example, the construction sector employs laser beams as line guides and levellers to provide a reference point, while the military uses it to determine ranges, acquire targets and guide “smart weapons.”

CLASS MATTERS: While the ubiquitous use of lasers underlines its versatility and high utility value, it can also be a hazard. Depending on its intensity or power, lasers can permanently damage the eyes and the skin.

Lasers are classified according to the power of the beam. Knowing which category of laser one is working with can help minimize the exposure hazard: • Classes 1 and 2: A low-powered laser that would not damage the eyes under normal operating conditions; • Class 3R: Intermediate in power and can injure eyes if viewed directly; and, • Classes 3B and 4: High-powered lasers that can result in fires and damage the eyes and skin. Some Class 4 lasers have sufficient power to amputate body parts.

WEAKEST LINK: Eye damage is the most common injury arising from laser exposure. When a bright light hits the eye, a person will blink or turn away from the light source — an act that typically takes a quarter of a second. Unfortunately, higher-powered lasers, such as those in Classes 3B and 4, can damage the eye in less time than that.

Depending on the severity of the injury, WorkSafeBC information notes that symptoms of a laser burn to the eye include headaches, visual distortions, minor burns in the cornea (which can feel like having sand in the eye) and permanent blindness.

LASER DANGERS: There are two types of laser hazards: beam and non-beam. Beam-related hazards refer to eye and skin injuries stemming from direct laser exposure. Non-beam hazards refer to ancillary dangers, such as electric shock from high voltage power supplies, injuries from the use or storage of compressed gases, inhalation of laser-generated air contaminants (such as fumes emitted from materials exposed to laser beams and laser plumes produced during surgical procedures) and fire or explosion hazards, notes the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) in Hamilton, Ontario.

The circumstances under which an injury can occur include accidental eye exposure during alignment, equipment malfunction, improper handling of high voltage systems, use of unfamiliar equipment and improper restoration of equipment following service.

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TOXIC FUMES: The use of lasers in medical procedures can potentially put health care workers in harm’s way. For example, the thermal destruction of tissue during laser surgery creates smoke plume that can contain toxic gases and vapours, such as benzene, hydrogen cyanide and formaldehyde, bioaerosols and dead and live cellular material — including blood fragments and viruses, notes information from the Centers for Disease Control and Protection in Atlanta, Georgia. At high concentrations, the smoke can cause ocular and upper respiratory tract irritation in health care personnel and creates visual problems for the surgeon.

COMBUSTION RISK: A fire can also be started when a laser beam or its reflection strikes a combustible material like rubber, paper products, skin treated with acetone and alcohol-based preparations, human hair and intestinal gases. Fire hazards are of particular concern in oxygen-rich atmospheres when oxygen or nitrous oxide is being used. Ensuring that the hot tip of the laser does not touch combustible items, maintaining precise control of laser beam and eliminating reflective surfaces are among the preventive measures that should be undertaken, CCOHS notes.

BUILDING BLOCKS: For guidance on developing a safe work practices program, there is the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) standard CAN/CSA-Z386-01: Laser Safety in Health Care Facilities and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard Z136.3-1996: Safe Use of Lasers in Health Care Facilities and Z136.1-2000: Safe Use of Lasers. A laser safety program must address the essential components of both administrative and engineering controls, some of which are listed as follows: Administrative: • Establish a written laser safety policy, including forming a laser safety committee and appointing a laser safety officer, who has the authority and responsibility to evaluate and control laser hazards; • Manage incidents or near-misses, including reporting, investigation, analysis and remedial action; • Train and educate personnel involved in the use and maintenance of lasers; • Have a quality assurance program, including regular inspection of laser equipment; • Establish a buddy system during maintenance work to provide first aid and call for assistance in case of an injury or accident; and, • Ensure that workers undergo periodic eye examinations.

Engineering: • Install local exhaust ventilation and have a fail-safe method in place, such as automatic shutters to protect the user’s eyes from reflected laser beams; • Lock and key to prevent unauthorized activation of lasers; • Eliminate reflective surfaces from the room and provide window covers (if required) to absorb scattered laser beam; and, • Provide safety latches or interlocks to prevent unauthorized access to controlled laser areas.

PRêT-à-PORTER: Lasers are not dangerous if used with care and when appropriately attired. Personal protective gear that helps to guard against laser’s harmful rays includes appropriate eye protection, adequate respirators and protective clothing and gloves, the CCOHS notes.

Selection of appropriate eyewear protection requires the consideration of three factors, namely optical density (the eyewear’s ability to filter the laser beam), type of laser and the visibility required. Different levels of protection are needed for infrared, visible light and ultraviolet laser beams. Goggles with side shields are recommended as they provide protection against back reflection and side entrance of stray laser beams. Employees who work near a laser may also be required to don protective apparel and equipment, the CCOHS adds.

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PRODUCT SHOWCASE an advertising feature

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TIME OUT

BURLESQUE BOOKWORMS: A strip club in Windsor, Ontario is dangling dollars and having its performers gyrate for grades. Women who sign up with Leopard’s Lounge and Broil can dance their way up to higher learning with up to $1,700 in tuition fees for local colleges or the University of Windsor, the Toronto Sun reported in late August. The club says it is offering the money in an effort to keep its roster full now that the federal government has stripped away work visas from 800 foreign sex workers in the country. Dancers can use the tuition fees for any course, provided they maintain a B-plus average in their studies.

ington, which is within driving distance from neighbouring Montreal, is a hub for francophone tourists, who are not exactly known for generous tipping. The move came after servers complained that their Canuck customers — even some regulars — are cheapskates. However, some restaurants have taken a more gentle-handed approach. Ken’s Pizza duly reminds its patrons — regardless of their language of choice — that “tipping is not just something you do in a canoe” and proposes that diners leave an 18-per cent tip for servers.

SANTA CALLS: This may sound like one unlikely survival

tip, but it certainly saved the life of one man. An Alaskan fish-

MATRIMONIAL MISCUE: It was a picture-perfect erman survived by floating in a plastic fish bin after his boat wedding of Canadian political A-listers — right down to the scandal over wasted taxpayer dollars. RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson and Transport Canada director-general Erin O’Gorman were married in Ottawa in late August, with the couple leaving the chapel arm-in-arm under a bridal arch of lances held by an honour guard of eight officers from the national police force’s Musical Ride team. The only problem with this polaroid-worthy scene was that the officers were not volunteers but officers on paid shift, The Globe and Mail reported. Paulson, who has led efforts to clean up corruption in the organization, apologized for the indiscretion and pledged to reimburse $912 for the three hours of work put in by the on-duty officers.

ROOST RUSE: Visitors to Charlottetown, Prince Ed-

ward Island during the busy fall tourist season may find the welcome mat in this scenic city a little more decorated than imagined, thanks to roosting seagulls flocking to the city’s wharf in droves and leaving behind a messy collage of organic material. In an effort to make the first impressions of cruise ship passengers a little less, well, crappy, the city’s Harbour Authority has hired a seagull shooer — the latest measure in a list that includes loudspeakers, animal replicas and even a falconer — to ward off the unwelcome airborne guests, the Toronto Star reported in September. The designated gull cop, armed with only a starter pistol, is tasked with stalking the docks at night, dodging bird droppings and scaring away the abundant avians from making the shipyard their home.

FITTING FAREWELL: Finding a deceased body in a hearse is nothing out of the ordinary — unless that body is sitting in the driver’s seat. Such was the case for police in Beverly Hills, California, who found the hearse driver slumped over the steering wheel of a vehicle parked near a hotel one August afternoon, The Associated Press reported. Investigators said it appeared the driver had died of natural causes.

The Grim Reaper had his work cut out for him that day: in a final touch of morbid irony, the hearse was on its way to a funeral at the time, with a full casket on board.

DîNEURS sans argent: Restaurant owners in Vermont have turned the tables on stingy customers by slapping an automatic tax onto the tabs of diners who speak the language of love, the Toronto Star reported in late August. Burl58 O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 2

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sank. The 19-year-old, in an effort to pass one of the longest nights of his life in the middle of nowhere, said he kept his spirits up by singing “Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”, the Toronto Sun reported in September. He was rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard more than 24 hours after his boat sank. His crew mate, who managed to don a survival suit found near the overturned boat, reached shore several hours before him.

TUSSLIN’ TOTS: Three daycare workers in Delaware were

arrested in August after police found a cellphone video showing the daycare centre being transformed into a gladiatorial arena by caregivers, who were inciting two three-year-olds to take on each other, the National Post reported. At one point, the video showed a child being told that there is “no pinching, only punching.” The three workers were charged with endangering the welfare of a child, reckless endangering and conspiracy. The daycare has since been shut down and its licence suspended.

CLIP CLIPPED: In the world of dangerous ways to bind sheets of paper, it appears a new king has been crowned. Metal paper clips, the scourge of sensitive digits everywhere, were responsible for cutting the finger of at least one employee of the Manchester National Health Service in the United Kingdom, Metro reported in August. The health service promptly banned this century-old patented invention from all of its clinics and offices. The move was delivered through a memo — accompanied by a picture of an offending clip — advising that the stationery be disposed of. Taking its place is the more benign plastic paper clip, an unlikely candidate to show the same bloodlust as its steely-eyed brethren.

MARCHING MAMMOTHS: It was certainly an unscripted move — at least on the part of a circus in Copenhagen — when two rambunctious elephants walked out of the circus and made a street packed with rush-hour traffic their runway. The elephant walk, trunk-to-tail, continued for about 200 metres before their trainer caught up with the errant pair, Reuters reported in September. While the multilaned downtown in the Danish capital may not have been lined with red carpet, police blocked off the road so that the tuskers could regally make their way back to the circus.

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