TORONTO, June 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On June 28, 2017, IAVGO Community Legal Clinic will be releasing their report No evidence: The decisions of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. The report analyzes the cases disabled workers appealed to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal in 2016.

“Our findings echo what workers have been saying for several years: the WSIB is cutting benefits in spite of the evidence, not because of it,” says Maryth Yachnin, author of the report and staff lawyer at IAVGO.

According to No Evidence, the Appeals Tribunal decision-makers said that WSIB’s decisions are “unreasonable” in ignoring the “unanimous opinions” of doctors, are based on “not a single word of medical or other reliable evidence”, and would place the worker at “medical risk.”

These are some of the report’s most troubling findings:

• In 110 appeals, the Tribunal found that the WSIB failed to respect the medical advice of the worker’s treating physicians about return to work.
  
  
• In 175 appeals, the Tribunal found that the WSIB’s decision was contrary to all, or all discussed, medical evidence.
  
  
• In 81 appeals, the Tribunal found that the WSIB’s decision was made without any supporting evidence.
  
  
• In 75 appeals, the Tribunal found that the WSIB denied benefits based on “pre-existing” issues without adequate evidence.
  
  
• In 28 appeals, the Tribunal found that the WSIB wrongly reversed a worker’s entitlement to full loss of earnings payments.
  
  
• In 38 appeals, the Tribunal decided that the WSIB had wrongly reduced the worker’s permanent impairment award based on “pre-existing” issues.

No Evidence follows the recent publication of Bad medicine: A report on the WSIB’s transformation of its health care spending, which found that the WSIB has been cutting benefits without improving health care outcomes for workers.

IAVGO will be presenting the findings of No Evidence at a community launch at 3:30 pm at 55 University Ave, Toronto.

IAVGO is a Community Legal Clinic funded by Legal Aid Ontario since 1975.