For many workers, an injury that occurs on the job will be an obvious and straightforward problem. For example, they get caught between the shelving rack and a forklift, which means that they might suffer a crushing injury or broken bone that clearly connects to a workplace accident.
However, people can also develop serious medical conditions and illnesses as a result of the job they perform that aren’t the result of a single accident. Environmental exposure to chemicals, repetitive motion eventually culminating into an injury or even job-related mental health issues are all examples of acquired medical conditions that might directly connect to someone’s job.
Do people who develop mental health conditions at work have the right to workers’ compensation in Kentucky?
How a job could produce mental health conditions
People in a range of careers can experience something on the job that traumatizes them and causes a lasting mental health impact. For example, a paramedic might respond to a call for medical support after a domestic violence incident, only to witness the battered spouse or even a child dying. Firefighters could wind up traumatized and unable to do their job after they enter a burning building with multiple co-workers and then become the only one to survive the inferno.
Witnessing horrific events as part of a job can leave someone permanently traumatized and unable to continue in the same line of work. Does Kentucky protect traumatized workers?
Kentucky worker protections focus on physical injuries
While many workers face job conditions that could prove traumatizing, the state of Kentucky does not recognize mental health conditions as part of its workers’ compensation program for the most part. Even first responders and other state employees who wind up traumatized because of something they witness on the job can’t claim workers’ compensation to cover their post-traumatic stress disorder under existing state statute.
Although lawmakers have been making attempts to expand and adjust the state law, real change has not yet occurred. Workers with debilitating mental health conditions may want to sit down and discuss their circumstances with someone who understands the state law and their rights as a worker in order to give them ideas of what options they have available.
