NOSM researcher says WSIB claims 'a difficult journey' for underground miners with COPD

A NOSM Universityresearcher has just wrapped up a project documenting the journey of miners attempting to navigate the Workers Safety Insurance Board (WSIB) claims process.

In her research, completed in 2022, Sherry Mongeau found miners who identified as smokerswere often discouraged from even applying for compensation sometimes by health professionals.

The miners who did apply oftenfaced challenges and a lack of support throughout the process, Mongeau said.

"The biggest thing that came from this study is you need to have an advocate to support you through the journey when you're submitting a WSIB claim," Mongeau said.

"A lot of my participants said it was very difficult for me to even get hold of somebody," she said.

"If they did get a hold of somebody, they were transferred through to different areasit was a very, very difficult journey and without an advocate the problem is that you just don't have the support you need."

Although much of the WSIB claims process from applying to checking the status of a claim has moved online.Shesaid many of the miners were from a different generation, or even retired.

"We appreciate that times are changing, but there's not enough support on the ground," she said.

"My participants wanted to be able to walk into the office. This was their generation. They wanted to be able to walk into the office to get support to complete forms."

Another barrier miners faced in the process was that in some cases Mongeau interviewed 16 underground miners for her study doctors advised them not to apply.

"Because we know that smoking is the number one cause for COPD, it was very difficult for physicians to be able to establish that their COPD was also in part caused because of the underground conditions in the mining industry," she said.

Fourteen of her subjects were smokers, she said, while two were not.

"That was part of the big challenge every time they went to the physician, the physician would say, 'but you smoke.'"

The miners would counter with stories of the filthy air and fumes they breathed, and suggested the underground environment was to blame for their disease.

"I had one participant who said to me, 'I used to come up from underground and everything that was coming out of my mouth and my nose was black," she said.

"Everything was black because we were constantly inhaling the fumes of the dust and the gasses. They weren't using the same equipment that the miners are using today."

You have to connect the dots to the mining history.- Sherry Mongeau

To round out her research, Mongeau also interviewed a group of physicians and union representatives.She said it was "absolutely" a difficult task for a doctor to tie a miner's disease to their work environment.

"You have to connect the dots to the mining history," she said. "The exposure, the chest X-rays, the pulmonary function test. It's not easy for a physician to be able to do this."

But the research also shows that those same environmental factors that miners worked though could become a serious health risk over time, smokingor not.

"We know that smoking is the number one contributor," she said. "But the research has also shown that the dust, the fumes, the gashes can contribute to that as well. And so that's the bigger challenge with WSIB."

A bit of a surprise came while Mongeau was completing her research.

Thanks to steady union advocacy, Mongeau said that WSIB changed its policy on compensation reductions for smokers.

The WSIB announced that it were no longer offsetting "non-economic loss and permanent disability benefits" for smokers who have put in a claim.

That means that smokers whose WSIB claim was reduced because of their smoking, are now entitled to the full amount.

"It was a really big win for those miners who were subjected to all of this exposure underground," Mongeau said.

Now that the research is complete, Mongeau said she hopes her findings help provide more support for miners applying for WSIB, and a renewed push for more support on the front lines.

"Advocacy is crucial, but education about how to walk through the WSIB process is also critical," she said. "I think for anybody in the mining industry, young, old or retired, it doesn't matter."

"Education has to be there to support anybody who has to go through that process. It's a challenging, difficult process."