ILO: Work-related diseases impoverish workers, families
- Employers should invest in the safety of their worker.
- Occupational-related diseases cause huge suffering
and loss in the world, yet the occupational or work–related diseases
remain largely unseen in comparison to industrial accidents, even though
they kill six times as many people each year.
According to the International Labor Organisation (ILO), millions of workers world wide are at risk of various types of work related diseases. ILO’s country Director, Alexio Musindo says despite millions of people being at risk, about 2.34 million workers die every year from occupational illnesses.
Some illnesses are caused by chemicals, physical and biological agents that cause respiratory and skin diseases as well as occupational cancer.
Another major illness claiming workers’ lives is pneumoconiosis. Pneumoconiosis is an occupational lung disease and a restrictive lung disease caused by the inhalation of dust, often in mines.
Of the estimated million work related deaths, 5,500 of them are caused by various types of work related diseases including pneumoconiosis.
Musindo says workers continue to be at risk of pneumoconiosis especially coal-workers. Deaths and risk incidents greatly take place in various mineral dusts in mining, quarrying, construction and other manufacturing processes.
However, pneumoconiosis has long latency periods and can often go neither detected nor reported.
ILO marked the world day for safety and health at work on April 28th this year in Arusha with a theme emphasizing on the prevention of occupational disease, which should be a priority in any kind of working place. The day is marked every April 28 each year. This year, the guest of honour at the event was the Prime Minister, Mizengo Pinda.
Some of the previous themes also emphasizing on making the work place safe include ‘Health and Life at Work as a Basic Human Right’ in 2009, ‘Emerging Risks and New Patterns of Prevention a Changing World of Work’ in 2010 and in 2011, ‘OSH Management system: A Tool for Continual Improvement’. In 2012 the theme was ‘Safety and Health in a Green Economy’.
Well known occupational diseases such as pneumoconiosis remain widespread, while relatively new occupational diseases, such as mental and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are on the rise again.
“When we say occupational disease we define it as a disease contracted as a result of exposure to risk factors arising from work,” says Musindo.
As far as the occupational and work related diseases are concerned they can impoverish workers, families, reduce productivity and work capacity and dramatically increase health care expenditures.
It is estimated that work related accidents and diseases result in an annual 4% loss in global gross domestic product (GDP) or about USD 2.8 trillion indirect and direct costs of treating injuries and diseases.
ILO also estimates that France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland and UK account for a cumulative figure of 200,000 mesothelioma deaths to be expected over the period 1995-2029.
Mesothelioma is as a cancer that is directly traced to repeated or long-term exposure to asbestos. Some of the occupations closely linked to mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases are military veterans, construction workers, shipyard workers, asbestos manufacturing plants workers and others.
Their associated illnesses (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, TB, cancers) often cause disability and death among workers while at work.
Apart from the problem of Pneumoconiosis, there is a warning that new forms of occupational diseases, such as musculoskeletal and mental health disorders are on the increase in various countries with no adequate preventive, protective and control measures.
As the diseases keep on increasing, there is a challenge of collecting data as they are very important to provide a basis for designing an effective prevention strategy.
Data on occupational accidents and diseases are mainly taken through three channels. These include employers reporting to labour ministries, claims accepted by employment injury compensation schemes and information from medical experts.
Despite the increase of deaths and diseases globally, yet more than half of the countries do not have statistics for occupational diseases.
The problem arises from the fact that many developing countries lack specific knowledge and experience for diagnosis, recognition and reporting of job-related diseases.
In Tanzania for example, it is difficult to tell the number of workers who die from occupational-related diseases.
“We have challenges in data collection in the country since they are very scanty due to low level of reporting from medical practitioners both from public and private sectors,” says Dr Akwilina Kayumba, Chief Executive for OSHA.
“Secondly we have a challenge on lack of advanced diagnostic tools and expertise which means a lot of occupational diseases are not diagnosed,” says the doctor.
The government of Tanzania is aware of the new industries and the increase in new types of illnesses such as musculoskeletal and mental health disorders which are increasing at world level.
However, the actual magnitude of the problem is not yet established. Risk assessment is being requested for all workplaces that OSHA inspects to identify all workplaces with potential for workers developing such problems.
For those already affected, employers are argued to ensure fitness to work medical examination is conducted to identify and treatment them.
Measures should be in place so that preventive steps may be taken in time to prevent loss of human resources.
Musindo says it is the role of the national Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) systems to deal effectively with the prevention of occupational diseases.
It is necessary to build capacity for recognition and reporting of occupational diseases, establish related legislative framework and improve teamwork of OSH and social security institutions to strengthen employment compensation schemes.
“We can however say in other ways that it is vital for OSH to improve capacity of occupational health services for health surveillance and keep an eye on the working environment and update national lists of occupational disease using the ILO list as a reference,” Musindo says.
On the other hand, he says in order to achieve this, it is required to reinforce social dialogue among governments, employers and workers and their organizations on the matter.
It should be pointed out that there are steps for prevention of occupational diseases if the employers and workers could commit to prevent them.
He says active participation of employers’ and workers’ organisations is vital for the development of national policies aimed at preventing job-related diseases.
And it should be emphasized that employers have a duty to prevent diseases by taking preventive measures through the assessment and control of work-related hazards and risks as well as health surveillance.
ILO says new paradigm of prevention focusing on occupational diseases and not only on work-related injuries is needed but the paradigm must underscore that; just because the problem is difficult to tackle, it cannot be ignored.
Recognition, prevention and healing of work-related diseases as well as improvement of recording and notifying systems should be made high priorities.
Dr Kayumba says OSHA always gives education to the public on the importance of occupational health and safety as well as on the roles various stakeholders have to pay to ensure safety and health is maintained at work places.
“We invite workers, workers representatives, employers and the public at large to participate in a procession to observe the world day for safety and health,” Dr Kayumba says.
The day is marked to remember fellow Tanzanians. some who either lost their relatives or sustained permanent disabilities at work- SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
No comments :
Post a Comment