FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
St. John’s, NL – A mom struggles to hear her daughter practice piano, as her hearing declines resulting from a workplace injury.
A family’s summer fun is cut short by a soft-tissue injury in the home-care sector.
And a father isn’t coming home for dinner, as his family copes with the aftermath of a workplace fatality.
These are the stories in an awareness campaign that begins airing across Atlantic Canada this week, developed in partnership by all four Atlantic Canadian workers’ compensation organizations and the Nova Scotia Department of Labour and Advanced Education.
The organizations have been working in partnership on awareness marketing for the past 10 years. This new campaign aims to increase awareness about the impact of workplace injury, and the importance of its prevention.
Some 15,000 Atlantic Canadians suffer time-loss injuries at work every year.
Those injuries affect our economy, our communities, our employers, our workplaces, and the lives of workers and their families outside of work.
“This powerful campaign shows the impact that workplace injuries have on workers and families throughout our province, and how quickly their lives can change,” said the Honourable Sherry Gambin-Walsh, Minister Responsible for WorkplaceNL. “It is important that safety remains uppermost on our minds, each and every day. Campaigns like this one help increase awareness on injury prevention in our workplaces.”
“While we have seen significant progress over the last decade, we know that, on average, 13 workers in our province are injured or fall ill due to their work each day,” says WorkplaceNL CEO Dennis Hogan. “Behind every statistic there is a person and a family whose lives have been changed by a workplace injury. We are proud to be a part of this campaign with our Atlantic partners, and we hope it will get people to think and act differently when it comes to safety in the workplace.”
Hogan says workplace injury, and the amount of time lost to it, has a direct impact on the economic progress of our region.
He says that’s why the work to prevent workplace injury, by both workers and employers, is so important.
Threads of Life, Canada’s national organization for workplace family tragedy support, is also a partner in the campaign. Threads of Life exists to support people who have suffered a workplace tragedy, and some of those courageous family members provided input on the television commercials.
“We were grateful and appreciative to have been part of the development of these ads,” said Shirley Hickman, Executive Director with Threads of Life. “Family members who took part in reviewing the advertisement had experienced similar tragedies, in real life. They embraced the concept in the hopes it might prevent what happened to their families from happening to someone else.”
The new campaign features television, radio, print, and social media ads, and will be used to support injury prevention efforts in workplaces.
To see the ads and learn more about the campaign.
Newfoundland and Labrador Workplace Injury Statistics for 2017
- Number of short-term disability claims – 3,356
- Workplace fatalities – 25 (5 accidental and 20 due to occupational disease)
- Sprain/Strains Time-loss injuries – 1,420
- New Hearing Loss Claims – 229
Related Links
Threads of Life www.threadsoflife.ca
About WorkplaceNL
Serving approximately 13,000 injured workers and 19,000 employers, WorkplaceNL administers an employer-funded, no-fault insurance system that promotes safe and healthy workplaces, provides return-to-work programs and offers fair compensation to injured workers and their dependents.
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Media contact:
Carla Riggs, Director of Communications
709.778.1590 or carla.riggs@workplacenl.ca