Re: Bad decisions based on bad assumptions (The Human Factor, January-February 2009)

Thank you for writing your excellent article on the danger of assuming an injury happened at work! I just read your article in Canadian Occupational Safety. I am a health and safety coordinator at a formerly large mould shop. (The company makes plastic injection moulds for various car parts. This mould industry has moved to China, so we could be out of business very soon — 250 workers down to 12).

You’ve seen it many times I’m sure. This is another example and I didn’t have any success fighting it. Job description would be mould design on computers. Workers did not sit up but tended to recline in their recline chairs, maintained a straight arm forward to mouse/keyboard. Never a claim until one worker felt numbness in a couple of fingers on a Saturday morning (off work). When visiting his doctor on Monday morning, doctor stated “carpel tunnel”, and later the WSIB claims adjudicator went along with it. I felt that the workers’ sleep position could have just as likely caused it.

When I brought it up to the adjudicator, she wouldn’t recognize it as the cause, but that it “might” be the cause. Is it harder for them to “fight” the doctor? No specific test was done to prove it was carpel tunnel. Who else should I have contacted? I felt I had just run into a brick wall. I thought the WSIB would be more aggressive in fighting a claim.


Ron Pearce
Health and Safety Coordinator
London, Ontario