A paramedic who couldn't feel a pulse because of symptoms connected to multiple sclerosis has been awarded $22,500 by the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal for injury to his dignity.

Peter Cassidy was a part-time paramedic in 2005 in Clearwater, B.C., when his bosses discovered he couldn't feel a pulse and moved him to an ambulance driver's position.

He had recovered quickly from a severe MS episode two years before that but numbness in his hands persisted.

Cassidy's supervisor said there were grave concerns for the safety of patients in his care and that his fellow employees were compensating for his performance.

Instead, in a 165-page judgment, tribunal member Lindsay Lyster found Cassidy was subjected to false and derogatory statements and discrimination from his superiors.

Lyster recited a range of "disadvantaging conduct" experienced by Cassidy, including being the subject of an investigation as an occupational health and safety hazard and having a supervisor talking about his health to co-workers, including making such derogatory statements that his MS must have "gone to his brain."

Lyster also found an offer of full-time employment for Cassidy as a paramedic was revoked.

Lyster did agree however with the B.C. Ambulance Service requirement that feeling a pulse is a necessity for job performance and even technical aids wouldn't overcome the risk to patient safety.

"The fact that it is the BCAS's patients who would bear the risks associated with a paramedic being unable to palpate pulses is crucial to the analysis," Lyster wrote. "By definition, the people who use (ambulance) services are a vulnerable group."

While the likelihood that a patient would suffer is small, Lyster concluded, the magnitude of an adverse outcome, including death, would pose too great a risk.

No evidence was presented at the hearing that said a patient suffered because Cassidy couldn't feel a pulse.

Lyster ruled the ambulance service had a duty to treat Cassidy fairly and with due respect, but instead managers at the service attempted to have both his driver's and paramedic's licence taken from him.

"By its conduct the BCAS subjected Mr. Cassidy to unnecessary frustration, anxiety, and financial insecurity and hardship," the ruling said.