Advocate says Alberta first responders, veterans face delayed care or are denied entirely

A local advocacy group supporting Alberta veterans and first responders living with service trauma says they are facing a crisis in care and being forced back to work before they’re ready.

Under the Workers’ Compensation (Presumptive Coverage for PTSD) legislation, first established in 2018, first responders diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder are entitled to timely and adequate treatment without the burden of proof.

The Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) in Alberta must now assume that the stress workers face was caused while they were employed unless proven otherwise. The province expanded the legislation to include nurses in July 2025.

However, Paul Wagman, the executive director for Wayfinders Wellness Society (WWS), says that’s not happening, and it’s common for first responders to experience delayed access to care, claim denials, and loss of benefits.

He says mental health supports in this province are falling through the cracks, and police officers, firefighters, and other Emergency Medical Services (EMS) workers are being pressured to return to work before they’re healed.

“Last year, we Wayfinders served 2,050 members, and our numbers are just growing, and many of our first responders are in since they’re not being treated fairly by insurance companies, such as WCB, which are mandated under Bill 27,” Wagman told 660 NewsRadio.

WWS says 792 psychological-injury claims were filed by Alberta first responders, with only 565 being accepted and 227 being denied. According to the Canadian Research Institute for Public Safety and Treatment, 44.5 percent of Canadian public safety personnel, which includes police, firefighters, paramedics, corrections, and dispatch, had at least one mental-health disorder, with 23.2 percent screening positive for PTSD.

Alberta’s WCB and other insurance companies are falling short and not carrying out the level of care under the legislation, according to Wagman. He adds it’s a systemic failure to push responders back on the front lines too soon.

“We need to make sure that we’re setting them up for success, that we remove the stigma and give them the resources, allow them to assimilate back to the workplace in a healthy way with the best tool and within the capacity and their healing that they can,” he said.

The WCB says in an employer fact sheet it presumes there is a confirmed psychological or psychiatric injury that happened at work that led to PTSD or a traumatic psychological injury after a traumatic event, unless there is contrary evidence.

It said a traumatic event that involves direct personal experience of an event or directly witnessing one that is sudden or unexpected, frightening or shocking, “having a specific time and space,” and “involves actual or threatened death or serious injury to oneself or a threat to one’s physical integrity.”

The WCB also states it will review the information from a worker and look for a confirmed diagnosis using the latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

“When the diagnosis is confirmed to be a traumatic psychological injury other than PTSD, we will confirm the nature and source of the traumatic incident(s) at work,” it read.

660 NewsRadio has contacted WCB Alberta for comment.

Wagman says orders from psychologists are being ignored, and first responders are being forced back to work before they’re ready, and he fears the direct failure will result in more lost lives.

He says it’s a systemic failure to push responders back on the front lines too soon, and he’s calling on the government to review and strengthen oversight of WCB Alberta’s Presumptive Care processes.

“Our call to action here is to apply the legislation and the laws that were brought in by the government and to maybe ensure that we have a body that oversees the way that the insurance and benefits are applied and overseen by those who are injured and those who have walked a mile in their shoes,” Wagman said.

660 NewsRadio has contacted the ministers of mental health and addictions; and for jobs, economy, trade, and immigration, for comment. The former declined to provide a statement and pointed to the latter for more information.