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City
Forces Injured Officers to Sue
For Disability Benefits Due Them
Just Who
is Meditrol Inc.?
The only
people who seem to care about the answer to that question
are the politicians and the men and women of the Lawrence
Police Department.
Meditrol
Inc., is a billing and management company that contracts
with the City of Lawrence to do billing and paper work
related to injury claims by members of the Lawrence
Police Department. Until a few years ago, that job was
done in city hall. But not anymore. Under the Dowling
administration, and the direction of Cheif Romero, not
only is Meditrol making decisions about billing for
insurance and workman’s comp, they are also making
the determination as to whether or not a police
officer’s injuries or health problems are line of
duty issues.
The Chicopee based company has made life difficult for
many police officers who get hurt protecting our
citizens. When officers expect their line of duty
injuries to be paid for by the City of Lawrence, often
they are told to pay up themselves. According to officers
within the department, Meditrol, as a matter of routine
rejects all line of duty claims and forces police
officers to go through lengthy arbitration procedures in
order to receive their disability compensation and
payment of critical medial expenses. And, even after
winning arbitration, most officers suffer further
setbacks when Cheif Romero appeals the arbitrators
decision to hold up their pay. While these injured
officers are fighting arbitration hearings and endless
appeals to obtain needed benefits they are simply not
being paid their salary.
Just imagine being a cop in Lawrence and getting hurt on
the job, only to find out that you are now without a
paycheck and at the mercy of a billing company in
Chicopee that has no care or concern about the pain and
suffering of our men in blue.
Former budget and finance director Carl Prussing told
Rumbo last week that the city used to handle the injured
in the line of duty cases but that "they just
weren’t capable or competent enough to do the
job." So, the city contracted to a private company
more concerned with their bottom line than they are with
the physical and psychological well being of our city
workers, in particular our police officers who face
danger every day.
Police officers who brave the streets of Lawrence must be
able to do so with the confidence that an injury
occurring because of their job will be taken care of
promptly and efficiently. Besides having to worry about
the politics and back stabbing that goes on inside the
department, and the hostile environment that they
routinely experience on the streets, officers now have to
worry about what will happen to their families if they
are lucky enough to survive being shot, stabbed, run down
or hit over the head. Is this any way to treat the men
and women who voluntarily patrol our streets at their own
peril? Is this any way to thank them for putting their
lives on the line? Mayor Patricia Dowling and John Romero
certainly seems to think so.
Ask any police officer who is not getting special
treatment from the Dowling administration and they will
tell you that morale is at an all time low at the
station. And who can blame them? They have enough to
worry about performing their regular duties without
having to worry if their families can put food on the
table if they get hurt on the job. And that is the worst
part of this Meditrol situation, at least for the
officers.
For the tax payers, the worst part is; cops who are
denied benefits and pay while they fight their case are
then forced to sue the City, meaning millions of our tax
dollars going to lost or settled law suits. It is not
only needless it is sickening! This is a senseless
situations that the mayor could easily avoid.
As bad as Mayor Mary Claire Kennedy was, she was right
about one thing, if you put lawyers in charge of
government the lawyers make all money while everyone else
suffers. Under Mayor Dowlings administration the lawyers
and consultants are making millions on these needless
legal cases while our officers are suffering from
injuries they receive at work.
What an
insult that our police officers have to beg for benefits
we promised them when they took the job! Of course the
Cheif's explanation is that officers claiming injury must
be checked out and deemed line of duty by someone other
than the officers doctor, so Meditrol serves to weed out
phony claims. OK, fair enough. But if Meditrol is
rejecting all claims as a matter of routine in order to
increase their bottom line, we are not safeguarding
against phony claims we are demoralizing the police
department and illegally denying benefits to officers who
should be paid until someone proves some kind of fraud.
Of course, you haven’t read anything about the
Meditrol situation, the case of Officer Rosa or the other
officers in this situation. The Tribune spent so much
time and ink painting him as a rogue cop that, to spill
the beans on his injury case would only damage their
stated position and make you think twice about the way
they reported on it in the first place. It’s called
Covering your ass.
According to Arbitrator, Atty. Katz, Rosa was wrongfully
denied benefits and went several months without a
paycheck after being attacked from behind with a beer
bottle and suffering continuous headaches after being
released from the hospital. And he’s not the only
one. Another officer currently needs crucial heart
surgery from work related stress problems and he has been
denied the surgery he needs.
Both
officers eventually received a judgment against the city,
but the city refused to comply forcing endless appeasls.
The question here is WHY? Why are we putting our cops
through this? For an extra buck? For political purposes?
Or is Carl Prussing right? Is it simply because our legal
department is too incompetent to handle line of duty
disability issues forcing the mayor and Cheif to abdicate
their responsibility to an out of town corportation who
does’t give a damn about our city or our officers?
I don’t know the answer to that question. Of course
I could speculate, but what fun would that be? The facts
are what they are, and regardless of the reasons we have
to do something to protect our cops from the politicians
so that they can be justly compensated when they are hurt
or disabled. There insn’t one shed of decency left
in city hall when our Mayor and Cheif allow this to
happen. It is no wonder the men in blue are terrified to
speak to the press for fear of reprisals. It’s no
wonder morale is so low.
Hopefully, with the mayoral election coming up this year
we may just get a new mayor who cares more about the
safety of our officers and the solvency of our city
treasury than Mayor Dowling. (though we hear she is
leaving by June) It will certainly be intereesting when
the debates begin. And when they do, I only hope that the
other mayoral candidates make Meditrol a campaign issue.
Because it is painfully obvious that this mayor and this
cheif will do nothing to protect our police officers when
they get hurt on the street. And that, my friends is
unacceptable!
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