ERGONOMIC HAZARD: Manual handling is one of the most common causes of injury at work and causes over a third of all workplace injuries which include work related MSDs such as upper and lower limb pain/disorders, joint and repetitive strain injuries of various.
SIBU: Musculoskeletal diseases (MSDs) are on the rise as the country moves towards industrialisation coupled with the rising average age of workers, recording a jump of almost 18 times compared to 2006.
National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (Niosh) chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye, in giving this observation recently cautioned that the number of cases could be higher as many cases had gone unreported.
“But there are also some of those data that could be captured especially those who sought Social Security Organisation’s (Socso) benefits.
“From the Socso data, we could see that the number of work related MSDs reported to the organisation is rising throughout the years.
“The number of cases increased sharply from the year 2006 onwards (15 cases) to 268 cases in 2011, a jump of almost 18 times just within a span of only five years,” Lee said in an email reply to The Borneo Post.
Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), UK, defined MSDs as conditions that affect the nerves, tendons, muscles and supporting structures, such as the discs in the patient’s back.
Last Sunday, Socso’s Health Screening Programme (HSP) medical officer Dr Mohd Faznin admitted that MSD cases were on the rise nationwide, attributing it in part to the lack of safe work practice at the workplace.
Lee added: “Due to Malaysia moving towards industrialisation and the rising average age of workers, we can observe that the MSDs related symptoms are on the rise. The Socso’s statistics showed an upward trend, with 161 cases in 2009; 2010 (238); 2011 (268) and 2012 (449).”
On the financial impact of MSDs, he bemoaned that the cost of treatment for MSDs was quite high.
“A study on analysis of temporary and permanent disability cases reported to Socso conducted by our researcher shows that on average, in 2008 alone, the compensation for permanent and temporary disablement benefit for work related MSDs cases in Klang Valley area is RM5,016 as compared to the average for other cases which is RM4,422.
“This data is exclusive of other benefits from Socso such as hospitalisation and others.”
He also noted that the awareness of ergonomics a few years ago was very low.
Lee, however, added that with the collaborative efforts of Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH), Niosh, Socso and industries, the awareness had increased especially amongst the safety professionals and multinational enterprises (MNE).
But, the current focus of ergonomics in Malaysia is directed toward the field of physical ergonomics, he said.
Explaining, he expounded that this was a discipline of ergonomics that deals with the physical aspects of task such as human anatomy, and some of the anthropometrics, physiological and bio-mechanical characteristics as they relate to physical activity, workstation design, task analysis and ergonomics risk assessment.
“Besides physical ergonomics, there are three more fields which are cognitive ergonomics, macro ergonomics (organisation ergonomics) and environmental ergonomics. Unfortunately, as for these three fields, people are not aware of them,” Lee lamented.
Hence, he stressed that ideally ergonomics issues should be treated not as a case-by-case basis, but as a holistic approach.
“I encourage the industries to embark on implementing ergonomics management programme at their own workplace where ergonomics issues can be better managed systematically,” suggested Lee.