Atlantic Canadians injured on the job take longer to return to work following a workplace injury than workers in most other provinces.

Each year, workers in the Atlantic Provinces lose a combined total of millions of days due to workplace injury. These injury durations have an impact on how workplaces conduct business, creating challenges for our economy and our ability to compete nationally and globally.

The impact is more than just economic – injury takes a significant human toll on workers, their families, and our communities, too. Our region’s people are our biggest asset, and we need them to be healthy, working, and on the job.

In an effort to further assist workers as they recover from workplace injury, Atlantic Canada’s workers’ compensation organizations have teamed up to launch a region-wide program .

Working to Well is one of several shared initiatives produced over the past decade by the Workers Compensation Board of PEI, WCB Nova Scotia, WorkplaceNL, and WorkSafeNB. Its goal is to keep people connected to their workplace, whenever possible, following an injury. The partners are using the program as a key tool in their efforts to reduce the human and financial toll of injury. How it’s used is different in each province, but at its core are four powerful stories of Atlantic Canadians who overcame challenging and life-changing workplace injuries.

Mechanic Robert Gunn broke all four limbs while working on tire reassembly service call near Charlottetown; Registered Nurse Denise Cann suffered a serious shoulder strain while moving a patient at Cape Breton Regional Hospital; Custodian Jeff Wilcox hurt his back working at the St. John’s Citadel; and Fredericton carpenter Darren Shaw suffered serious injuries to his arm during a drywall installation. All four workers made a successful return to work and their stories form the centerpiece of the Working to Well program.

Getting safely back to work after injury is a team effort. Working to Well recognizes that fact, and offers practical tools that workers, employers and health care providers can use to support success.

“It takes a team of people working together to create a path to recovery from workplace injury,” says WCB of PEI Chief Executive Officer Luanne Gallant. “Employers, WCB case workers, physicians, physiotherapists and other health-care providers play influential and important roles in a worker’s treatment plan. That’s how, together, we are working to well.”

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