The North American Chronic Pain Association of Canada

NACPAC Responds to the article.

Dear Editor:

“Chronic Pain, Sunday December 8th,” by Monika Graham. An excellent piece to inform the public about the travesty of justice the WCB is getting away with because they can. So far! It is the hope of people who have chronic pain, that the courts will see the injustice of this, and change the legislation so that people who are injured at work will be duly compensated, when diagnosed with chronic pain, and no longer able to work.

The people mentioned in the article give an accurate picture of the individuals who live with chronic pain, and are discriminated against because of the illness. The general public is unaware of the travesty of justice that injured workers face, when they endeavor to
attain the benefits they have paid into, ever since they started working. People pay the WCB out of each paycheck, believing that if injured at work, the WCB will look after them. This is rarely the case, if chronic pain is mentioned in the report.

As president of the North American Chronic Pain Association of Canada, I represent the 29% of the Canadian population who have this invisible disability called chronic pain. I have met hundreds of people who have chronic pain, and are no longer able to work because of it. They would absolutely wish to return to work, rather than to be left out, at home, or on the street, and criticized because they are no longer working. When WCB says “chronic pain is not an impairment, is not tissue damage and does not cause permanent disability or impairment, so there is no compensation and the sufferer should return to work,” they are DEAD WRONG! I would invite the person who came up with that incredible statement to follow an individual with chronic pain for 24 hours, and then tell us that pain is not impairment.

The patient would like nothing better than to be able to return to work. No one chooses to stay home, live on a paltry disability pension, loose friends, social life, and sometimes a spouse. WCB seems to feel that the person with chronic pain has chosen this affliction, in order to avoid having to go to work each day. This couldn’t be more wrong. There probably are a few people who try to play the system, but they are in a minority, compared to those who really have chronic pain.

It is hoped that the Supreme Court of Canada will make a ruling declaring that WCB is discriminating against the people with chronic pain who have been injured at work. No one makes the diagnosis themselves, that they have chronic pain, called “self-reporting of pain,” by WCB. The diagnosis comes from specialists who treat this condition, and know what they are talking about. Compared to the people who work at WCB, and make the decisions that chronic pain is not impairment, and thus discriminate against individuals who have it. It is time the courts stepped in, and protected the people who have been so badly and wrongly treated in such a discriminatory manner.