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Half of B.C. first responders who file mental-health claims don’t receive the help they’ve requested

Lorimer Shenher was a Vancouver cop for 24 years before finally leaving the force with a PTSD diagnosis. He warns many B.C. first responders aren't receiving the help with mental health that they need, in part because of a difficult claims process at WorkSafeBC.
Lorimer Shenher was a Vancouver cop for 24 years before finally leaving the force with a PTSD diagnosis. He warns many B.C. first responders aren’t receiving the help with mental health that they need, in part because of a difficult claims process at WorkSafeBC.

Lorimer Shenher estimates that less than five percent of B.C. first responders who need help with mental health ever ask for it. That’s only a guess, he said in a telephone interview. But it’s an educated one.

Shenher was an officer with the Vancouver Police Department for 24 years, before leaving the force with a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 2013. He’s also the author of That Lonely Section of Hell, a book about the investigation of women missing from the Downtown Eastside and the prosecution of serial killer Robert Pickton. The book recounts Shenher’s lead role in that investigation, and the debilitating toll it took on his mental health.

In a telephone interview, he discussed the challenges that B.C.’s first responders—firefighters, police officers, and paramedics—can encounter on their way to getting help with conditions such as PTSD.

 Shenher argued that because relatively few first responders who ask for help, WorkSafeBC should make it as easy as possible for them to receive it.

“I think there are much higher percentages of people in those professions that need help that aren’t asking for it,” he said. “When they do finally acknowledge to themselves that they are struggling, it takes a huge amount of courage and faith to put a claim into WorkSafe.”

Yet roughly half of B.C. first responders who do file a mental-health claim with WorkSafeBC do not receive the assistance they are looking for.

According to WorkSafeBC data first reported on by the Tyee and updated for the Straight, for the period July 2012 to December 2015, only 51 percent of 277 B.C. first responders who filed a mental-health claim saw their case approved. (These statistics exclude the RCMP and Transit Police.)

In a telephone interview, Jennifer Leyen, director of special care services for WorkSafeBC, emphasized those numbers do not mean 49 percent of claims were rejected.

She supplied a statistical breakdown showing that of 136 first responders’ mental-health claims not approved, 15 percent were stamped “no adjudication required”, which means that paperwork was only filed for “informational purposes” and did not include a claim for health-care costs or lost wages. Another 32 percent of disallowed claims were suspended, meaning the applicant dropped out of the claims process before a resolution was reached.

Leyen also emphasized that the acceptance rate for mental-health claims filed by first responders was significantly higher than that of all mental-health claims. That number was just 26 percent.

“We accept a significantly higher percentage of first-responder claims than we do any other employer group,” Leyen said. “It is double.”

But she conceded WorkSafeBC accepts a smaller percentage of mental-health claims than it does of the claims it receives as a whole (the bulk of which involve physical injuries). According to Leyen, the acceptance rate for all WorkSafeBC claims hovers around 91 or 92 percent.

“Because the mental-health legislation is very specific about what gets accepted under this part of our legislation, there is much more adjudication required,” she explained. “And we do have a higher disallow rate.”

Leyen noted that changes enacted in July 2012 broadened the scope of mental-health claims deemed eligible for WorkSafeBC compensation. Whereas the rules once said an individual had to be on the scene of a traumatic event—a car accident, for example—now they also cover mental-health challenges that can result from what WorkSafeBC calls “work-place stressors”.

Shenher benefited directly from that legislative change. His claim was initially rejected on the grounds he had not spent time on the farm where Pickton took his victims. It was only accepted by WorkSafeBC when it was reviewed again under the revised legislation.

“I understand how difficult it is to get your head around how PTSD manifests itself,” he said. “It is really weird, the things you can do, the things that you can’t do, the things that trigger you, and the things that are okay. It’s different for everybody.”

At the same time, Shenher questioned whether there’s a need for an arduous review process of mental-health claims. He suggested there’s already such a degree of stigma around mental health, especially in the tradition-bound environment of a police department, that only people with a very pressing need for help ask for it.

Shane Simpson, NDP MLA for Vancouver-Hastings, worked with first responders to draft a private member’s bill that would see WorkSafeBC handle first responders’ mental-health claims with a “presumptive” approach.

“For somebody who was diagnosed with that [PTSD] who is a first responder, the claim would be accepted immediately, without any further processes, unless there was a glaring reason to review it,” Simpson explained in a telephone interview.

He said he introduced that bill last March, but, without government support, he doesn’t expect it to go anywhere.

Simpson maintains that a presumptive approach to mental-health claims is important because a mental-health challenge is very different from a physical injury. He said a condition like PTSD can make the WorksafeBC claims process seem especially daunting, hence the organization’s high percentage of suspended mental-health claims.

“One of the challenges with PTSD is, it’s an area where, because of people’s health condition, they get frustrated,” he said. “And numbers of them don’t follow through to the end of that [WorkSafeBC] process, because of their level of depression.”

The Tyee’s May 20 article presents the stories of several first responders who struggled with long and difficult processes of filing mental-health claims with WorkSafeBC. Shenher recalled how hard the process was for him before his claim was finally accepted in 2012.

“And when you get denied—” Shenher paused. “It’s devastating.”

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This article was originally published at Straight.com on May 25, 2016.

Timeline of transit police shooting fits troubling pattern of fatal encounters with B.C. police

An independent body has found transit police should be cleared of any wrongdoing in the December 2014 fatal shooting of a 23-year-old First Nations man named Naverone Woods.
An independent body has found transit police should be cleared of any wrongdoing in the December 2014 fatal shooting of a 23-year-old First Nations man named Naverone Woods.

Today (May 16) new details were released about the death of Naverone Woods, a 23-year-old First Nations man who was shot and killed by transit police in December 2014.

A report by the Independent Investigations Office of B.C. (IIOBC)—which cleared the officers involved of any wrongdoing—includes a time line for the shooting. It notes that one of the first officers on the scene at a Safeway in Surrey fired the shots that killed Woods within 60 seconds of their arrival.

At 8:03 a.m., Woods entered the Safeway, according to the report. At 8:07 a.m., 911 received a call wherein Woods was reported to be stabbing himself with a knife.

Two minutes later, at 8:09 a.m., two transit police officers arrived and entered the Safeway. That same minute, two shots were fired and Woods was on the ground.

He was pronounced dead at Royal Columbia Hospital at 9:27 a.m.

Helen Slinger is a Vancouver-based documentarian whose recent film Hold Your Fire focused on police shootings involving a person experiencing a mental-health crisis. She told the Straight that the time line of the Woods shooting resembles many cases she reviewed for her film.

“It is very much a pattern,” Slinger said in a telephone interview. “Police are going in too fast, too hard.”

In researching Hold Your Fire, Slinger and fellow journalist  Yvette Brend read hundreds of coroner reports from across Canada. In B.C. alone, they found that between the years 2004 and 2014, 28 people were shot and killed by police or RCMP while experiencing a mental-health crisis.

“After two years of research it took to do that documentary, it was the one thing that finally, really jumped out at me,” she said. “That in so many of these high-profile police shootings of persons in mental distress…police just do not take the time to back up.”

High-profile cases

Stringer listed off a number of fatal police shootings that she described as similar to the Woods case in that officers fired their weapons within less than three minutes of their first encounter with their suspect.

In November 2014, Vancouver police officers shot and killed Phuong Na (Tony) Du less than two minutes after they arrived to apprehend him at the intersection of Knight Street and East 41st Avenue.

In July 2013, Toronto police shot and killed 18-year-old Sammy Yatim within one minute of the first officer arriving on the scene.

In August 2007, a Vancouver animator named Paul Boyd was shot by police on Granville Street. Less than three minutes had passed since the first officer had intervened.

In 2004, Christopher Reid was shot by Toronto police, also within three minutes of their arrival.

Slinger also mentioned Robert Dziekański, who, although not shot with a gun, died after RCMP repeatedly tasered him almost immediately after meeting Dziekański at Vancouver International Airport in October 2007.

The pattern Slinger says she’s noticed in coroner reports from across Canada mirrors findings of the Straight’s own analysis for British Columbia.

In February 2015, the Straight published a review of more than 120 coroner reports that dated from 2007 to 2014. During that period, there were 99 incidents where someonedied during an interaction with police.

An update the Straight published in December 2015 looked specifically at deaths involving firearms. It revealed an increase in those incidents. And, echoing Slinger’s findings, the Straight’s investigation revealed that the first few minutes or even seconds of an encounter often meant the difference between life and death.

Difficult circumstances

The IIOBC’s report on Woods describes difficult circumstances for the first transit police officers who arrive at the Surrey Safeway that morning.

Multiple eyewitnesses are quoted there describing the young man as holding two knives, failing to respond when people tried to intervene, and repeatedly inflicting harm on himself.

Those anecdotes support one another in stating that police repeatedly shouted warnings before any shots were fired. “Drop the knife,”, “Get down,” and “We’ll shoot,” people heard the officers say.

The witnesses are also in agreement that Woods “lunged” or was “moving towards” the officers when they met him just inside the store’s entrance.

A Safeway security guard told IIOBC investigators he estimated the length of time officers had their guns drawn before firing was between 10 and 12 seconds.

Transit police spokesperson Anne Drennan told the Straight she couldn’t comment on specifics pending the completion of investigations by the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner and the B.C. Coroners Service.

But Drennan emphasized that transit police officers receive the same basic training as every police and RCMP officer in B.C. She emphasized that this includes instructions on mental health and the appropriate use of force.

“Since January 2012, the province of B.C. sets binding standards to ensure that B.C. police officers are trained to use crisis intervention and de-escalation techniques,” she said.

The province requires that officers receive a refresher on those topics every three years. The IIOBC report confirms that both officers involved received that training in July 2014.

A larger problem

Doug King is a Pivot Legal Society lawyer who keeps a close eye on police-involved deaths. He told the Straight the fact that the IIOBC cleared the officers of any wrongdoing is actually indicative of a larger problem.

“We know that this is the legal standard, currently,” King explained. “That if you’ve got someone who’s presenting with an edged weapon and they are physically advancing on an officer, the legal test is, basically, that at that point lethal force is justified.”

King asked why the officers were not equipped with alternative weapons that could have been used without killing Woods. He noted the IIOBC’s report concludes with the same question.

Like Slinger, King told the Straight that details in the IIOBC’s report fit a pattern.

“I would say it’s almost déjà vu,” he said. “We see these cases where the officers are not able to contain the individual until the appropriate resources arrive.”

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This article originally appeared in print and online at Straight.com on May 16, 2016.

FOI response suggests B.C. Premier Christy Clark has basically stopped sending emails

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B.C. premier Christy Clark has essentially stopped using email, a response to a freedom-of-information (FOI) request suggests. Either that or she has been sending emails and then deleting them.

If the latter is true, it would contradict an order Clark gave in response to a scathing report on government record-keeping that the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of B.C. (OIPC) released on October 22.

“I’ve told everyone at the political level, ministers, political staff, even if it’s clearly a transitory document that you are required by law to delete—I want you to keep it,” Clarksaid on October 23.

Yet an FOI request for all emails Clark sent from October 19 to 22 and from October 26 to 29 turned up just one document.

“Can you send me a copy of that note you typed us for me recently and stuck in my book?” the sender wrote to communications coordinator Chelsea Dolan. (The sender’s name is redacted but it can be assumed it was Clark, given the parameters of the FOI request.)

The Straight previously reported that a request for Clark’s emails from a two-week period in December 2014 produced no records.

The premier’s office did not grant an interview.

The request for Clark’s October correspondence was filed by the NDP. David Eby, New Democrat MLA for Vancouver–Point Grey, told the Straight the lack of records the request produced is noteworthy because it shows that Clark’s email habits did not change despite her instructing staff to retain their communications.

“It is hard for me to imagine how you could be the premier and have one email over two weeks,” Eby said. “It just doesn’t make any sense to me and strongly suggests she is either deleting her own emails or she is not using email to avoid creating records that could be FOI’d.”

The OIPC’s October 22 report details how employees in the premier’s office plus staff at two ministries had “triple deleted” emails, taking extra steps to expunge records from computers. In addition, the OIPC has accused one employee with the Ministry of Transportation of giving false testimony about the practice while he was under oath. That case has been forwarded to the RCMP.

Clark has repeatedly claimed that email is not her preferred means of communication and said she conducts government business face to face.

The premier tapped former B.C. privacy commissioner David Loukidelis to instruct the government on how it should implement recommendations outlined in the OIPC’s October 22 report. As the Straight went to press, Loukidelis was scheduled to present his findings on December 16. (Update: Loukidelis’s report can be found here.)

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This article originally appeared in print and online at Straight.com on December 16, 2015.

Metro Vancouver hospitals refer hundreds of immigration cases to border police

Byron Cruz of Sanctuary Health warns undocumented immigrants that if they go to a hospital, they might be reported to the Canadian Border Services Agency. Travis Lupick photo.
Byron Cruz of Sanctuary Health warns undocumented immigrants that if they go to a hospital, they might be reported to the Canadian Border Services Agency. Travis Lupick photo.

Byron Cruz has encountered the sorts of situations that arise when someone is afraid a trip to a hospital could end with them being deported from the country.

He once helped a man injured on a construction site connect with a veterinarian who stitched closed a deep cut, for example. And Cruz says it’s common for pregnant women to seek his network’s help for deliveries.

“My number works as a 911 number for undocumented people,” he said, interviewed at his office in the Downtown Eastside. “We never announced our services, but my number has been given to people as the number they can call. That is very scary, because 911 is for emergencies.”

Cruz is an organizer with Sanctuary Health, a group that promises people can access care without fear of any complication that might arise from their immigration status.

He said that recent months have seen Metro Vancouver’s community of undocumented immigrants—which he estimated numbers between 3,000 and 5,000—grow increasingly reliant on such services that exist outside the province’s health-care system. A troubling statistic obtained from Fraser Health, which operates 12 hospitals throughout the Lower Mainland, may reveal why.

From January 2014 to October 2015, Fraser Health referred approximately 500 patients to the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), the federal police force tasked with immigration enforcement.

“When we learned this, we were very shocked,” Cruz said. “This has to be taken very seriously.”

The issue of CBSA referrals gained widespread attention in 2014 when it was reported that the previous year transit police forwarded 328 incidents to CBSA. Those calls resulted in 62 investigations and at least one death: in December 2013, Lucia Vega Jiménez committed suicide while in CBSA custody after transit police arrested her for fare evasion.

Since then, the City of Vancouver has worked to designate itself a “sanctuary city”, where undocumented immigrants can access municipal services regardless of their status. But the rest of the region has not shown the same enthusiasm for such policies.

In a telephone interview, Fraser Health spokesperson Tasleem Juma confirmed that 500 calls to CBSA was an “approximation” for the period January 1, 2015, to October 7, 2015.

Juma claimed that Fraser Health does not know how many of those referrals resulted in CBSA launching an investigation, nor could she say how many ended in deportation. “Once the information goes to CBSA, what they do with it they don’t report back to us,” she said.

CBSA refused repeated requests for an interview. A spokesperson for the B.C. Ministry of Health told the Straight the province does not have a policy on immigration referrals and leaves those decisions to each service provider.

According to Juma, Fraser Health primarily contacts CBSA for billing purposes. She explained that nonresidents are charged different rates from residents and sometimes a call to CBSA is required to confirm a patient’s status. However, a Fraser Health policy document obtained by the Straight states that both physicians and nurses have “responsibilities” to attempt to see a nonresident discharged back to their home country.

Juma maintained that those sections are written to mean staff should ensure a nonresident will have access to health services after they leave Canada.

“We are not in the business of dealing with immigration issues,” she said. “When somebody needs emergency care and they come to us, we will take care of them.”

Juma added Fraser Health is open to revising guidelines for dealings with CBSA to harmonize its policies with providers across the region. “I think that would go a long way in relieving people’s concerns about coming to get health-care services,” she said.

Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) and Providence Health Care, which operate Vancouver General and St. Paul’s hospitals, said they could not supply numbers for CBSA referrals by deadline.

Juan Solorzano, VCH executive director of population health, told the Straight VCH now requires that a patient give their permission before a call is made to CBSA. He noted they can refuse, in which case, if residency status cannot be confirmed for billing purposes, the patient will be charged the higher rates of a nonresident.

“That policy was updated in August 2015,” Solorzano said. “We will no longer call the border services agency without consent from the client.”

Regarding the 328 cases transit police sent CBSA in 2013, Anne Drennan, a spokesperson for the force, told the Straight her organization has implemented similar reforms. She revealed that in 2014, there were only 48 referrals. And so far in 2015, transit police have called CBSA just 18 times.

“We had no interaction with CBSA in November,” she said. “What changed was the policy. We no longer ask people about their status in the country.”

City councillor Geoff Meggs delivered an update on Vancouver’s efforts to become a sanctuary city. He reported that a draft document is essentially finished and expected to begin circulating among advisory councils before the end of the year. From there, he said, he hopes it will go before city council during the first half of 2016.

Meggs acknowledged that immigration is primarily a federal issue and so the city’s authority on such policies is limited. But he added that Vancouver is acting where it can.

“Immigration and residency status is not relevant to us,” he said. “So you are safe to do business with us.”

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This article originally appeared in print and online at Straight.com on December 9, 2015.

B.C. Corrections makes it official policy to house transgender inmates based on gender identity

On September 30, Bianca Sawyer was transferred from Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre, a prison for men, to Alouette Correctional Centre, a provincial prison for women located in Maple Ridge. That change made her the first pre-op transgender inmate in B.C. to be housed in a facility based on her gender identity.
On September 30, Bianca Sawyer was transferred from Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre, a prison for men, to Alouette Correctional Centre, a provincial prison for women located in Maple Ridge. That change made her the first pre-op transgender inmate in B.C. to be housed in a facility based on her gender identity.

British Columbia has become the second province in Canada to make it official policy to hold transgender prisoners in facilities based on gender identity as opposed to physical attributes.

As the Straight reported on November 4, B.C. Corrections permitted the first transfer of such an inmate in September.

That individual is named Bianca Sawyer, a transgender woman who was born with the physical characteristics of a man and who was previously known as Jaris Lovado. Sawyer was originally held at Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre, a prison for men, and was transferred to Alouette Correctional Centre, a provincial prison for women located in Maple Ridge.

Interviewed for that story, B.C. Justice Minister Suzanne Anton described the move as part of formal changes in rules and procedures.

“The written policy is still under development, but you can see the application of the policy is already underway,” she told the Straight on October 28. “We have had our first person placed based on gender-identity, and it seems to have worked out very well.”

As of November 15, that policy is officially down on paper.

The changes concern section 9.17 of the B.C. Ministry of Justice Adult Custody Policy, according to a copy of the revised document obtained by the Straight.

It previously stated that an inmate is not permitted such a transfer until they have progressed in treatment to step four of six outlined in that document. Step four is described as “surgical removal of sex organs”.

The revised section 9.17 states that an inmate who identifies as transgender will be involved in the decision process that dictates whether they are held in a facility designed for males or one for females.

“Transgender inmates are placed in a correctional centre according to their self-identified gender or housing preference, unless there are overriding health and/or safety concerns which cannot be resolved,” it reads. “Those concerns are clearly articulated to the inmate. Consultation occurs with the medical director and/or the director, mental health services.”

The document adds that a transfer is not required.

“The inmate is involved in the decision-making process,” it continues. “It is recognized that not all transgender inmates want to be housed according to their self-identified gender.”

B.C. Corrections’ revised policies cover a number of other areas concerning the care and security of transgender inmates.

For example, they state transgender inmates should be given “preferred institutional clothing and underclothing”, that they should be provided with personal items that may be required “to express their gender identity”, and that accommodations should be made to allow for transgender inmates to use the washroom and shower in private.

In a letter to the Straight, Sawyer described what the policy change meant for her.

“When I was called for transfer I was ecstatic to say the least,” she wrote. “A calming euphoria of appreciation and thanks washed over me.”

The changes at B.C. Corrections follow the Ontario government implementing similar reforms in January 2015.

Jen Metcalfe is a lawyer with West Coast Prison Justice Society who helped push for Sawyer’s transfer. She described the revised procedures made public today as an example the rest of the country should follow.

“The policy may be the best example of any jurisdiction in Canada and the world for the accommodation of transgender prisoners,” Metcalfe wrote in an email to the Straight. “B.C. transgender prisoners are now protected by policy from being put at risk of sexual harassment and assault, and are now afforded the dignity and equality that all people deserve.”

In a separate email, Adrienne Smith, a lawyer with Pivot Legal Society, similarly applauded the change in regulations. However, they emphasized discrimination against transgender people remains “endemic”, not just inside prisons but throughout society overall.

“The new corrections policy addresses a historical wrong of prisons misgendering trans inmates by housing them in way that exposes them to harm,” Smith wrote. “B.C. is catching up to other provinces with this prison policy. But that the real solution will be to address the root social and economic reasons why so many trans people end up being sent to jail in the first place.”

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This article was originally published online at Straight.com on November 23, 2015.