‘I DID MY JOB’
Essential employees with lasting COVID effects seek workers’ comp changes
For Scott Mesloh, a registered nurse, handling the admission of a COVID-19 patient last March left him with an infection that’s had a lasting effect.
Still struggling to breathe while hooked up to supplemental oxygen, Mesloh said Thursday he has not returned to work at Natchaug Hospital in Mansfield since he was sent home when the patient tested positive for COVID-19. Still, he cannot get approved for workers’ compensation.
But Mesloh and thousands of other workers are faced with a challenge:
“I can’t even play with my young son like I used to, which is really troublesome ... clearly, my life will never be the same because of COVID-19.”
Sean Howard, corrections officer at Cheshire Correctional
Proving they contracted the disease on the job, despite rampant community spread, to receive this key benefit.
“Unfortunately, I’ve been dealing with this every day. It’s unfair that they are fighting, that they are saying this came from somewhere else. I wouldn’t have gotten COVID if I didn’t admit this patient . ... I did my job. I did what was asked of me. And now here I am, sick. I can’t breathe. Breathing every day is a struggle,” Mesloh said, who lives in Pawtucket, R.I.
Labor groups and employees, with the support of legislators, are seeking to make COVID-19 a rebuttable presumption for workers' compensation claims, shifting the burden to employers to prove the worker did not contract COVID while on the job.
A bill before the legislature would restore this protection that was briefly established last March in an executive order from Gov. Ned Lamont, and run through the duration of a public health emergency. It also bolsters burial benefits for essential workers who died.
“Essential workers have waited long enough to be made whole,” said state Rep. Robyn Porter, a New Haven Democrat that cochairs the labor and public employees committee that held a hearing Thursday on the bill. “This is the least that we can do for them. I think this should be given. Some of the strings need to be loosened in the way that we are awarding workers’ comp.”
It is unclear how many workers’ compensation claims would be affected, but officials from the AFLCIO said 3,100 COVIDrelated claims have been filed and 300 are actively in litigation. They did not know how many had been denied with individuals unaware they could appeal the decision.
Sal Luciano, president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO, said thousands of workers have contracted the virus since the onset of the pandemic, and many have died.
“At the very least, our state’s essential workers deserve a workers’ compensation presumption so we can take care of them when they get sick,” Luciano said.
This legislation comes at a crucial time, Luciano argued, since he said the state deprioritized essential workers in its vaccine rollout and announced plans to lift many business restrictions on March 19, further putting these people at risk of contracting COVID-19.
“People are still testing positive for COVID. As good as we are doing with our numbers, we are not out of the woods. I’ve said it before and I will keep saying it, we don’t get to call them essential workers and treat them like sacrificial lambs, literally being led to slaughter,” Porter said.
Without the protection of this rebuttable presumption, advocates say it’s a challenge to show that a worker contracted the virus on the job, despite the clear risks for those deemed essential, be it an employee at a grocery store or a nursing home.
“The problem is how are we going to prove these cases? It’s one thing to go to work and have a brick hit you in the head or you tripped and fell and hurt your knee. It’s another thing for you to go to work and be exposed to a microscopic virus and then be told you have to the leave the workplace,” said Nathan Shafner, head of the workers’ compensation section of the Connecticut Trial Lawyers’ Association. “How are you going to show your exposure?”
Shafner said law protects the privacy of peoples’ medical conditions, which a sick workers might need for the case.
When you factor this privacy with the fact that you are dealing with a microscopic disease, this rebuttable presumption helps the injured worker, Shafner said.
For those like Mesloh and Lisa Marquis, a 25year nursing home worker from Thompson in Connecticut’s northeastern corner, the struggle to get workers’ compensation has been drawn out for months.
Marquis, a certified nursing assistant at Davis Place in Danielson, said she contracted the virus in November.
“I got COVID at work. I’ve battled COVID for four months. I’ve ... been drained physically and emotionally. To this day, I struggle to breathe [and] find myself deeper and deeper into financial crisis,” Marquis said.
For her and others, this bill, she said, could help make them whole while they are unable to return to work.
“We need to be believed when we file for aid,” she said.
When COVID-19 spread swiftly through Connecticut prisons, correction officers Virginia Ligi and Sean Howard found themselves working in a “petri dish” of the virus. Both contracted the coronavirus while working in Cheshire Correctional Institution, they said.
Howard, who lives in the Hartford area, said the virus led to a heart conditions he now has to manage with seven medications.
Like others, he said, his claim remains in a “holding pattern.” He said he hasn’t been denied, but hasn’t received his benefits. He said his fellow corrections workers used sick, vacation and personal time to recover from the virus.
“It has left me fatigued and feeling short of breath every day,” Howard said. “I can’t even play with my young son like I used to, which is really troublesome ... clearly, my life will never be the same because of COVID-19.”