WCB
rejects claims for
crippling
by Jim Sinclair
THE pain started in Martha West's middle finger two years ago during herring season and by salmon season, osteoarthritis had attacked her wrist and begun to twist her fingers.
For Elsie Ralph, the pain started in her knees and hands during a long salmon season and by January, she landed in the hospital battling rheumatoid arthritis which had spread to other joints in her body.
Rose Smith felt the pain during herring season and ended up off the job for a year before her arthritis could be brought under control.
All these shoreplant workers and many, many more struggle daily to control arthritis, a disease which has no known cure but one which can cause excruciating pain and result in severe crippling unless proper treatment is given early.
Martha West is angry about it.
Like most women in the plants with arthritis, she believes that it was brought on by her continued use of her hands for filletting and cleaning fish, but medical evidence only partly backs this up and the Workers' Compensation Board won't accept arthritis as an occupational disease.
That means that besides battling the disease, West and the others must also try and continue to work, a move which could accelerate joint degeneration and pain.
"I was peeved at my doctor," she said. "He told me to live with it or quit my job, but how the hell can you pay the bills if you're not working?"
West now works at B.C. Packers doing other jobs when work is available, but is unhappy with the WCB for not accepting what she considers to be obvious: the disease is caused by her job.
"That bloody compensation board," she said. "They treat you like a criminal. I can't believe it."
Arthritis is a broad term to describe
• The cold and wet of a fish plant contribute to art!
more than 90 disorders, but the most common types according to Alan Tray-nor, acting chief of the Vancouver Arthritis Centre, are rheumatoid and osteoarthritis.
He said that rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammation of the joint or soft tendon around the joint, but unlike osteoarthritis, does not necessarily involve degeneration of the joint.
Osteoarthritis is the joint itself deteriorating. Again, the cause of it is not known, although some factors can lead to its development.
"We know that wear and tear is one of the factors," he said. "But we don't know
why some people in certain activi show wear and tear and others don't
"There are certain occupations that associated with localized osteoarthrit he said.
He said sometimes the centre g people who have inflammation of joi from packing plants, but said it v "awfully hard to prove," it was the res of their job.
He said one way that arthritis victi can cope with the disease is to quit tr job or be retained for another occupati
That may work for younger people v\ come to the centre, but older people
WeYe selling a mi
Huge savings!
We're placing on sale over $1,000,000 of surplus stock. Huge savings on over 5,000 items of commercial fishing gear, marine hardware and industrij supplies will be offered to all commercial fishermen and other members of the marir and industrial trades All kinds of items from shackles to tools to blocks to zincs will be featured at great savings
WHOLE
6/THE FISHERMAN — SEPTEMBER 30, 1983