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Workplace illnesses on govt’s radar

May 04, 2010 News

…stress far more prevalent than accidents

Workplace illnesses, due to stress and unsafe conditions, have far outnumbered accidents. Government has announced a comprehensive plan to change this.
Previously, Government campaigns, in targeting accidents, concentrated mainly on industries, mines and factories but policy makers are now shifting their attention to the wide employment sectors after growing evidence that work-related illnesses and death were far more prevalent than the accidents.
Speaking at the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security launching of its “Decent Work Country Programme”, recently, Permanent Secretary, Trevor Thomas, said that the idea is to ensure employees are allowed to work in an environment that not only caters for their economic and social well-being but also reduces factors contributing to occupational accidents and diseases.
Thomas, according to a government release, pointed out that work environment where persons spend the greater part of their day, must be equipped with the requisite facility to ensure workers safety.
According to statistics from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), in 2003, more than two million people died of occupational injury and work-related diseases.
Quoting the ILO statistics, the Permanent Secretary noted that in 2003 there were 358 fatal job-related accidents and 1.9 million deaths from workplace-related diseases for the same period.
He stressed the importance of focusing this year on the emerging trends and new challenges in the workplace in the form of occupational hazards.
The decent work agenda simply means that at no time must the health of employees be compromised even in cases where many organisations are cutting costs by downsizing during the global financial crisis, in order to remain viable.
“Many people suffer from diseases such as hypertension, ulcers, cardio-vascular diseases relating to stress in the workplace.
We have to consider the emerging trends of issues such as chemicals, harmful rays, ergonomics, skeletal disorders and things like that,” the Permanent Secretary said.
He called for a shift in thinking where new trends in the modern workplace are now focused on and targeted as against the conventional safety concepts.
“With these new trends, the effects are not always immediate and made manifest at an early stage. We must recognise that these are the many challenges and work to ensure everyone achieve the decent work agenda,” Thomas added.

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