Fabiola is a 40 year old female who was born in Haiti and has landed immigrant status.

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Fabiola is a 40 year old female who was born in Haiti and has landed immigrant status. She is competent in both French and English. She lives alone and has no close family in Canada. She is a Registered Nurse with a bachelor's degree in Nursing. She is very popular with people in her neighbourhood and in her congregation.

She has been working in a general hospital on the oncology ward for the past 15 years. She had developed a chronic low back pain problem a number of years ago but had been managing it with medication. She has been absent from work for 12 weeks on the grounds of back pain and this triggered a referral to the individual responsible for disability management.

When she attended for the assessment interview, she presented as being very pessimistic and described herself as being at her 'wits end'. She was having difficulty getting to sleep and was waking during the night. She believed that this was having an impact on her capacity to concentrate and attend to her work responsibilities. She also felt overwhelmed and had difficulty problem solving and making decisions. She admitted that work requirements were getting out of hand and that she was having feelings of hopelessness. She believed that her nurse supervisor, who was recruited about 12 months ago, had taken a personal dislike to her and was overly critical, making negative comments to her in front of her colleagues and reporting even trivial mistakes to senior manager and HR.

At an interview with her manager, she was described as a dedicated health care worker who was always cheerful and an outgoing and high energy person. He said that he had noticed she had become more irritable and anxious over the past 12 months. This had impacted on her workplace relationships and particularly with her nurse supervisor. Her work has also suffered.

The individual proving disability management met with the nurse supervisor who was very critical of Fabiola's competence as a nurse and questioned her suitability as a nurse. She believed that Fabiola would be better off working in a less stressful environment and less demanding work such as a social care home. She reported that she had suggested this to her on a number of occasions and admitted that other co-workers have been present on some occasions when this happened.

When the individual responsible for disability management followed up with colleagues and co-workers, a number of them referred to the perception that the current nurse supervisor had taken a dislike to Fabiola from the start and that she was being treated unfairly. Some of them were able to recount incidents in which the nurse supervisor had been overly disdainful of her competence and had used belittling language.

Fabiola's HR record indicated an unblemished record for most of her career and only since the appointment of the current nurse supervisor were there records of ineffectiveness and inappropriate behaviour. The HR manager believed that the issues between the nurse supervisor and Fabiola were temporary and would resolve themselves.

Fabiola was not very keen to return to work with her current employer, whom she perceived as imposing untenable workloads on the nursing staff and was adamant that she would not go back to work under the current nurse supervisor.

List three fundamental issues that the individual responsible for disability management needs to take into account
Describe health and safety legislation or human rights laws that require consideration.
Explain why these are important from a return to work or job retention perspective.
What advice would you give to the individual providing DM services to the worker regarding this overall scenario?