On November 9, 2023, the Nova Scotia Legislature made changes to the Workers’ Compensation Act that relate to how WCB covers psychological injuries.
Until now, WCB has only covered traumatic stress. We’ve long argued treating psychological injuries differently from physical injuries was discriminatory, and in 2019 the exclusion of chronic stress injuries was found to be unconstitutional. The recent legislative changes are intended to remedy this injustice. The new legislation provides entitlement to compensation for work-related gradual onset stress.
These important legislative changes take effect in September 2024. In the meantime, the WCB is preparing to implement these changes.
A major part of WCB’s preparations include re-writing their Policy on Psychological Injuries. They’ve released a draft policy that sets out criteria and guidance for the adjudication of work-related psychological injury claims. You can find their Discussion Paper and proposed policy on WCB’s website, here.
This draft policy is open to public consultation until March 1, 2024. Anyone who wants to comment on the draft policy can send their input to WCB’s policy department by e-mail to nancy.stacy@wcb.ns.ca.
We believe the proposed policy needs changes to be fair to injured workers. In collaboration with the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour we prepared a submission on the Policy. You can read our submissions here. SUBMISSION – WORK-RELATED MENTAL STRESS – NS Federation of Labour (002)
We encourage everyone to review WCB’s Discussion Paper, review our submissions on the changes we believe are necessary, and prepare their own submissions to ensure their voices are heard in this important process.
If you have questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to get in touch.