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Pa. House approves EMS aides' protections
Tuesday, June 05, 2001 By John M.R. Bull, Post-Gazette , Harrisburg Correspondent
HARRISBURG -- Emergency service personnel across the state will find it easier to collect workers' compensation benefits if they come down with hepatitis C under a bill that passed the state House unanimously yesterday.
"As they protect us, we have a moral obligation to do everything we can to protect them," said House Majority Leader John Perzel, R-Philadelphia, who sponsored the measure in reaction to a standoff between Philadelphia Mayor John Street and firefighters in that city.
Philadelphia has refused to pay workers' compensation to an estimated 200 past and current firefighters who are infected with hepatitis C, saying there is no proof that the disease was contracted on the job.
The bill, which now goes before the state Senate, creates a presumption that an emergency service worker who gets the deadly virus contracted it on the job, unless proven otherwise.
"This issue isn't complicated," said state Rep. Mike McGeehan, D-Philadelphia. "The disease is complicated; this isn't."
Hepatitis C is a blood-borne disease that attacks the liver and can lead to liver failure. The virus is spread mostly through intravenous drug use or sexual contact. Paramedics and firefighters claim they face high exposure to those who are infected and thus become infected themselves.
The bill would cover firefighters, paramedics, corrections officers and Welfare Department workers throughout the state.
Philadelphia fought the bill, claiming it would cost the city $10 million over the next five years in increased workers' compensation costs if past and present employees who are infected received payments under the legislation. A similar bill passed the House last year, but it died when the Senate did not take action on it.
The bill would have little impact on Pittsburgh, said Barbara Parees, city personnel director.
"I do not believe we have anything comparable to [the problem] in Philadelphia," she said. She could not say how many city emergency service employees have contracted hepatitis C and applied for workers' compensation but been turned down.
Opponents of the bill say one of the least common ways to contract the virus is by touching the blood of someone who is infected. They also say the burden of proof that a disease was contracted on the job should remain on the employee and not be shifted to municipalities to prove that it was contracted in another way.
Perzel noted the state of California enacted a similar law last year.
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