Firefighters' cancer risk recognized by BC government

It doesn't happen too often that any government gets praised for what they are doing, but today I want to notice a good initiative by the British Columbia government with regards to compensation for firefighters for certain kinds of cancer they got at work.

BC's Labour Ministry introduced legislation that recognizes a number of cancers as occupational disease associated with long-term employment as a firefighter. Here are those cancers:

• primary site brain cancer,
• primary site bladder cancer,
• primary site kidney cancer,
• primary non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,
• primary site ureter cancer,
• primary site colorectal cancer and
• primary leukemia.
  

It is nice to see that one of the most respected by the public professions gets adequate treatment by the government. Well, maybe the government wants to show the teachers who is their favourite. On the other hand, the Professional Fire Fighters’ Association is not as powerful as the teachers' union and it's a big public relations gain for them...

Firefighters are very important in the province of BC where they have to protect not only the communities, but also - especially in summer - have often fight forest fires.

This initaitive has important implications for the professional firefighters because it means that the risk of cancer was recognized as one of the hazards of their job and from now on, the onus will be on WorkSafeBC (the Workers’ Compensation Board) or the employer to bring forward proof to establish why an injured worker should not be eligible for compensation rather than placing the burden of proof on a sick firefighter. This is much better solution for the firefighters going through cancer they acquired as the result of fighting the fires.

It can be expected that the provincial government will introduce similar legislation to protect other sectors of the work force - for those got seriously sick at work, who got not only cancer, but many other serious professional diseases. For example, health sector workers need similar protection as firefighters...

Helen