Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye
SIBU: The number of work related musculoskeletal disorders in the country has been rising steadily and compensation for ergonomics related cases was found to be higher than other occupational diseases.
Citing the Social Security Organisation’s (Socso) statistics, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (Niosh) chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye noted in 2013 alone, there were 694 ergonomics related cases out of 2,630 cases of disease, which means for every four cases reported to Socso, one was related to musculoskeletal disorders.
“However, many of the cases were for acute injuries, if we look at chronic musculoskeletal cases, we found that there were 40 cases (out of 121 occupational diseases cases) paid by Socso in 2009.
“This number rose steadily over the years, where in 2014, out of 605 occupational diseases cases paid by Socso, 153 were for ergonomics related cases,” Lee said in a statement to The Borneo Post yesterday.
He added: “Issues of safety and health at work, especially what we call occupational safety and health issues in general can be divided into two, occupational safety and occupational health issues. For occupational safety, issues such as machine safety, working in confined spaces, working at heights and commuting accident were the leading causes of accidents in the workplace.
“For occupational health, previously some of the hot issues were the issue of chemical exposure and noise in the workplace, however, we found that there were an increasing number of injuries related to ergonomics cases such as musculoskeletal disorders.
“Work related musculoskeletal disorders are collective and descriptive symptoms caused or aggravated by work and characterized by discomfort, impairment, disability or persistent pain in joints, muscles, tendons and other soft tissues. Examples of musculoskeletal disorders are back pain, slipped disks, carpal tunnel syndrome, and stiff joints.”
Touching on financial impact, Lee noted that compensation for ergonomics-related cases was generally found to be higher than other occupational diseases.
“Based on a study conducted by the Centre of Excellence for Ergonomics, the cost of permanent disability compensation for occupational diseases associated to ergonomics was RM25,313 per case, compared with the average compensation cost at RM22,841 for other cases.
“Comparison by year also showed that the total amount of compensation increased from RM1.04 million in 2009 to RM1.94 million in 2014.”
He disclosed that the study also showed the location of the main injury was to the back (51.2 per cent) followed by the hips (28.86 per cent).
Concerning awareness among employers and employees on the subject of ergonomics, Lee said in general there was an increase in the level of awareness due to the collective effort from Niosh, Department of Occupational Safety and Health (Dosh) and Socso as compared to five or 10 years ago.
However, factors such as aging workforce, equipment design and lack of specific legislation and standards regarding ergonomics made it hard for many organisations to fully implement ergonomics at workplaces, he noted.
Towards this end, he said many people thought that ergonomics meant selecting the best chairs for the workers, training the workers on how to lift correctly or proper seating and standing postures.
In fact, ergonomics itself has many disciplines and the three major ones involved physical ergonomics, mental ergonomics and organisational ergonomics.
On measures taken to improve ergonomics at workplace, he revealed that previously, most ergonomic implementation were done through a campaign poster or via short talk given to the employee.
Now, due to the increased awareness of the efforts of all parties, a lot of industries started to take a more serious view on how to manage this problem.
Lee said: “Ergonomic implementation of the best management system is through the development of ergonomics in the workplace.
“Among them are the establishment of procedures relating to ergonomics in the workplace, ergonomic risk identification and risk assessment methods, early reporting and investigation of disease, and the selection and supply of equipment based on ergonomic considerations.”