It is not just female prisoners, it is more far reaching than that.
www.canlii.org/en/on/onwsiat/doc/2022/2022onwsiat1544/2022onwsiat1544.html?searchUrlHash=AAAAAQALVHJhbnNnZW5kZXIAAAAAAQ&resultIndex=5
Toronto court involving a female prison officer.
The issue on appeal was whether the worker had entitlement to benefits for PTSD and, if so, under which WSIB policy.
By way of background, the worker claimed that while working as a corrections officer, she developed a mental stress injury of PTSD, resulting from being assigned to a mental health watch on December 16, 2019, in which she was responsible for monitoring a transgender inmate on suicide watch on a closed circuit camera. She claimed that the assignment was not manageable for her because of her own childhood trauma, which she advised the employer and the union of. However, she had to continue in the assignment for the duration of her shift and extra hours afterwards. She began missing time from work on December 19, 2019 and was diagnosed with PTSD on January 2, 2020.
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The worker testified that she told her manager that she was not comfortable watching this inmate on camera and that she was not familiar with all the protocols for transgender inmates. In her view, it should have been a male officer watching the inmate. She told her manager that she would take any other assignment as she was not comfortable with this assignment. Her manager told her she had to take the assignment and they would try to get someone to switch out with her. At one point she saw the inmate go to the bathroom, but the inmate covered the camera and therefore she had to call officers right away as she could not see if the inmate was head-banging or trying to tie something around her neck. The officers went down and found that the inmate had covered the camera to go to the bathroom even though the worker had already seen her do this many times.
The worker testified that she asked a few managers to switch her out of the assignment but it had to be a female officer monitoring the inmate as this was required by the protocol. This was the first time in Canada that an inmate identifying as female with external genitalia was on camera and no policies were yet in place for this.
The worker testified that she became more and more anxious and felt traumatized by being forced to watch this inmate and by being unable to leave. She asked for help from her manager and to be taken off the post a number of times. She was so upset that she divulged that she had been sexually abused in childhood to her manager. However, her manager told her she could lose her job or be reprimanded if she left the post. The manager told her she would ask the female officers to switch with her, as the monitoring on camera had to be done by a female, but the manager did not call her back.
The worker testified that she was supposed to work a 9 hour shift, from 2:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. However, she had no relief for a break to go to the bathroom or for supper as she could not leave her post unless someone came to relieve her. Other officers brought her in food but would not relieve her for a break. When the next manager came on and her shift ended, the manager told her that he had asked two female officers to replace her but one went home sick and the other refused the assignment. She was therefore ordered to stay until someone else was able to relieve her. Therefore, she ended up remaining on the post until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.
This woman won her case for compensation for her PTSD retrauma.