City of Greater Sudbury workers' injury claims more than tripled in 2022

A Sudbury city councillor says he's hoping to see a little more transparency from City Hall when it comes to the number of injuries on the job.

MikeParent, who represents Ward 5, said he was "caught by surprise" when he first read the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board's (WSIB)report on the number of injury claims by workers with the City of Greater Sudbury.

Under a heading titled "safety check,"the WSIB says there were 270 lost time claims in 2022, up from 83 in 2021.

The previous high was in 2018, when 95 claims were reported. COVID-19 claims are included in the yearly tallies, but the WSIB says the city reported 223 allowed COVID-19 claims from 2020 to 2022.

Parent said thatin addition to the high numbers, he was also concerned that most of his fellow councillors didn't have ready access to the information.

"As board of directors to the corporation, we should be aware of the health and safety performance and be given the opportunity to ask questions," Parent said.

"That's something the motion, passed by council on Feb 21, is intended to address. The city's top staffers will now be directed to report health and safety numbers to council quarterly.

"The importance of the motion is to make sure that council is made aware of the [city's] health and safety performance," Parent said. "And I think that there's also an opportunity to commend the city staff when they're building initiatives into how we do our work to protect team members.

"I think it'll just bring all of the information in a nice package for council to hear and ask questions and for members of the public to listen to."

Corporation responsible for employees' safety

Parent, who is also vice-president of prevention services at Workplace Safety North (WSN), said after being elected in October, putting this motion together became his priority.

"As an employer, we have a responsibility to make sure we take care of our employees and contractors performing services for us. I believe their families all have an expectation that when they finish their shift they're going to be coming home to them in as good and healthy a condition as they did when they left that morning."

There is also a financial impact, he said.

"If people are hurt if they're not at work then there's a cost to the city. Not only are there direct costs for the wages, but there are probably fiveto seven times the indirect costs that are associated with a workplace incident or injury.

"When we see higher numbers of injuries or incidents, high number of claims, that means there are also some financial implications on an organization."

We should be aware of the health and safety performance and be given the opportunity to ask questions- Coun. Mike Parent

In an email to CBC News, Gabrielle Servais, a human resources specialist with the City of Greater Sudbury, said the spike in numbers comes after COVID-19 outbreaks decimated staff at Pioneer Manor, the city-operated long-term care facility.

"Following the community surge in COVID-19 cases in the fall of 2021 and early winter, CGS staff primarily in Pioneer Manor and Paramedic Services resulted in 206 COVID-19 claims in 2022, approximately 135 of them in the first quarter of 2022," Servais said.

"It is our understanding that the way in which WSIB adjudicated COVID claims changed because of the inability to do proper contract tracing back to the workplace so that has led to a reduced number of COVID claims by the end of 2022."