Jodi Gallagher Healy Quoted by Business Insurance Concerning Ontario PTSD Law
Jodi Gallagher Healy was quoted by Business Insurance on April 7, 2016 regarding Bill 163, Ontario’s First Responders Act. The Act creates the presumption that PTSD in first responders is work-related which simplifies their access to workers compensation benefits. This will likely affect 73,000 first responders in Ontario. Jodi explains that, at present, the WSIB evaluates a claim based on whether an emergency worker has been diagnosed with PTSD, which emergency call the individual attributes their PTSD to and whether the call was unusual in the context of their job. Further she says, “That analysis is flipped on its head because instead of engaging in ‘Are they entitled,’ the presumption is going to be they are entitled unless it can be shown that the PTSD is not related to their work.”