Cancer kills more firefighters than fire. Changes to health coverage in Sask. are offering more support
CBC
Firefighters in Saskatchewan have been lobbying for decades for better cancer coverage. Now, the Saskatchewan Workers Compensation Board (WCB) is stepping in to provide some relief.
Saskatchewan firefighters are now eligible for WCB coverage for up to 22 types of cancer, six more than before.
Tyler Packham has spent the last 23 years of his life as a firefighter in Regina and has already had a brush with cancer.
Packham was screened at a firefighting conference and was found to have nodules on his thyroid. He had to have surgery to get them removed.
"They only took out my thyroid, so I'm still dealing with nodules on the other side," Packham said. "[I'm] hoping that they doesn't progress to cancer."
The World Health Organization declared firefighting a Group 1 carcinogen two years ago. Health Canada announced this fall that cancer is the leading cause of job-related deaths for firefighters across the country.
Packham said firefighters are well aware that the job leads to cancer, but there isn't much they can do about it.
"It's very, very frustrating," Packham said.
Packham also serves as the president of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 181. The union is among the groups who have been lobbying for change. He said the new health coverage has been a long time coming.
Packham said firefighters do everything they can when returning from a fire, but no matter how many times they wash their gear, chemical residue still lingers on equipment and gear.
"There's no way to get away from it," Packham said. "We're walking around in a smoke-filled environment and crawling around in water that we've been spraying and it's being absorbed through our skin."
He said firefighters are handling mixed plastics, synthetics, car and dumpster fires on a regular basis.
"Unfortunately, we all figured it out way too late that there were these hidden hazards," Philip Germain, CEO of the Saskatchewan WCB, said.
"We want to do everything we can to help them prevent those injuries."
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