MPP Natyshak wants first responders in Bill 163
Sue Sommerdyk will never shake the horrific memory of trying in vain to save the lives of three little girls.
Still haunted by that day a decade ago, when three children died in a house fire, she applauded the introduction Thursday of a private member’s bill to give nurses and other front-line workers benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I did CPR and watched each one of those little girls die,” said Sommerdyk, a nurse for 35 years and the local co-ordinator for the Ontario Nurses’ Association Local 8.
“Then I had to go up to my unit, I had to give the report on my patient and I had to sign off. Then I had to go home, I had to look at my children and I had to pretend that everything is OK. It emotionally destroys you but we’re expected to just keep going.”
Essex MPP Taras Natyshak has introduced a private member’s bill to include first responders who were left out of Bill 163. The bill provides post-traumatic stress disorder benefits to first responders who face violence and trauma at work.
Natyshak said the bill needs to be “corrected” because some key job sectors were left out of the bill, including probation and parole officers, extended police service employees and nurses.
“These workers have to deal firsthand with the very worst impacts of violence and trauma,” he said. “They endure violent traumas, and are exposed to the cumulative effect of years of being exposed to primary and secondary trauma. They shouldn’t have to continue to relive these traumatic events as they are forced to prove their PTSD is work-related through a long, cumbersome and expensive WSIB appeals process.”
Sommerdyk said the Ontario Nurses’ Association has been fighting for years to get such a bill.
“ONA has been strongly advocating for the change to that legislation since before they put it out, so of course anyone who can help push that agenda forward and get nurses recognized, we support,” she said.
“We need to have nurses added to that legislation. The fact that the government left us out of the post-traumatic stress disorder legislation was a real let down for not thinking that we’re first responders.”
Sommerdyk said many nurses suffer from depression, PTSD and other mental health issues after years of coping with countless devastating situations.
“Where nurses face the death of a child, particularly if it’s abuse,” said Sommerdyk.
“Violence at work. Hit, kicked, punched. Nurses have been stabbed. Nurses have been shot. The verbal abuse is unbelievable. We have to intervene when patients are being treated poorly by their families. The death of a patient that is unexpected that you’ve worked hard to deal with. Every possible thing that you can think goes wrong and could happen, nurses are there at the front line.”