Hip, knee, ankle and foot are most common areas of injury
In 2021 – a time when several groups are calling for governments to look into the human health resources crisis – the health and social services industry recorded the highest percentage of workplace injuries among industries in Prince Edward Island.
Health and social services had 27.7 per cent of the total time-loss claims in the province, a slight drop from 29.5 per cent recorded in 2020.
Manufacturing (18.3 per cent), construction (11.6 per cent), retail trade (9.4 per cent), government services (9.2 per cent) and other services (23.8 per cent) were far behind in the time-loss claims list by industry, according to the Workers Compensation Board (WCB) of PEI’s annual report.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, nine per cent of doctors have had suicidal thoughts but have never attempted to take their own life while about one per cent have attempted suicide, according to a report from Medscape.
Also, during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario,75 per cent of Canadian nurses were classified as burnt out.
Overall, time-loss injury frequency in the PEI was 1.37 per 100 workers.
Musculoskeletal injuries (57.2 per cent) continued to make up the highest percentage of time-loss injuries. Back (20.8 per cent) and hip, knee, ankle and foot (20.4 per cent) were the most common areas of injury. These were followed arm, wrist and hand (19.9 per cent); multiple body parts (12.1 per cent); and head, neck and throat (11.3 per cent).
Injured workers had to wait 15 calendar days on average before they received their first payment from the WCB in 2021, down from 16.2 days in 2020.
“2021 continued the need for our team to dig deep both professionally and personally,” said Cheryl Paynetr, CEO of WCB PEI. “Changing protocols, restrictions and client needs made us more nimble and responsive, albeit much more challenging. Our collective resilience was put to the test in dealing with our own tragedy in the loss of one of our own late in the year.”
“Despite these real challenges, we were able to come together as a team and accomplish many outcomes under each of our strategic priority areas which you will see a sampling of in this report.”
Earlier this year, Saskatchewan reported that, for the second straight year, 90 per cent of workplaces in the province had zero injuries and zero fatalities in 2021.
Meanwhile, Nova Scotia recorded 20 work fatalities in the year 2021, according to the Workers’ Compensation Board of Nova Scotia and the Department of Labour, Skills and Immigration (LSI).
