People & Their Problems

New Delhi, 14 April 2010

Occupational Hazards

MAKE YOUR WORK PLACE HEALTHY

By Suraj Saraf

With increasing economic growth, the problem of occupational hazards and conditions at work places is significantly increasingly as apart from the health and safety of the workers it also has a crucial impact on productivity.

At a recent three-day conference “Preventing Emergency Occupational and Environmental risks in South Asia and Beyond”, in the country’s capital, New Delhi, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit underlined that with medical science establishing that environmental factors may contribute 30 per cent of the total burden of illness in a given society “identifying occupational illnesses related to environment has become important”.

Clearly, occupational and environmental hazards are being noticed due to fast economic development and increasing utilization of natural resources. Much of the burden of diseases can be done away with by taking adequate measures for preventing and controlling the use of harmful chemicals and safer technologies as also using more renewable energy.

Such measures, in turn, would lead to lesser burden on the overcrowded hospitals. Apart from this a better social security system was also needed for providing a helping hand to persons faced with occupational and environmental hazards. Indeed, health and happiness instead of economic growth should be accepted as parameters for development of any nation.  

Some recent reports have suggested that conditions in India regarding this aspect of economic growth required to be improved as the country was losing heavily on these accounts. In fact, a World Health Organisation (WHO) report had underscored that India could incur losses of $ 237 billion by 2015 due to a sharp rise in lifestyle diseases such as  diabetes, stroke, cancer et al all thanks to increasing unhealthy workplaces.

The economic loss in India which was $ 8.7 billion in 2005 would rise to $ 54 billion by 2015, warns the WHO report entitled: “Preventing communicable diseases in the workplace through diet and physical activity”. The projected loss for the other Asian giant, China was massive $ 558 billion by 2015, while the projected figures for Russia and the United Kingdom was slated at $ 33 billion each, it was $ 9.3 billion dollars for Brazil, $ 6.7 billion for Pakistan, $ 1.5 billion for Nigeria and Canada each.

Promoting the concept for a healthy workplace, the WHO report had underlined that physical activity together with healthy dietary habits could be effective in improving health-related outcomes such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

It may be mentioned here that a healthy and balanced diet has also become important because of spread of pollution and environmental degradation, resulting in reducing the immune power of the individual. Such a diet helps to keep the body healthy and keeps it free from at least some diseases. Let us not forget that as it is, India is one of the largest disease-prone countries of the world, not just because of poverty and squalor, but also because of lack of knowledge and awareness about what constitutes a healthy diet.

The WHO report, the outcome of an event jointly organized by the WHO and the World Economic Forum, summarized the current evidence in addressing different dimensions of the workplace as a key factor for setting requisite intervention designed to prevent non-communicable diseases through diet and physical activity.

Enhancing employee productivity, improving the corporate image and moderating medical care costs are some of the factors that might foster senior management to initiate and invest in programmes prompting healthy workplaces, the WHO report underlined.

Essentially the key elements of a successful workplace health programme include establishing clear goals, linking progammes of business with work place safety programmes, the report further emphasized.  

According to survey conducted by the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) and the Price Waterhouse Coopers and their joint report, hypertension threatens to wallop the workforce in India, due to globalization and increasing stressful working environment The report said that 65 million people were affected by hypertension in 2008 which in all likelihood is bound to rise to 200 million by the year 2015.

The desperation to protect one’s livelihood in this era of a changing economy, with little medical facilities to cope with the situation was posing a major threat to the well-being of the working force, maintained the ASSOCHAM. India is particularly losing its potentially productive years due to incidents of increasing heart diseases, strokes and diabetes in the age group of 35-60 years, which shockingly is one of the highest in the world, according to the report.   

The rise in this incidence would only add to the national losses, which in monetary terms were pegged at $ 90 million dollars between 2005 and 2008. The report estimated that it was likely to go up to $ 160 million during 2009-2015.

Given the reports and the disturbing statistics about workplaces in India, the Union Cabinet had approved a national policy on safety, health and environment at workplace to ensure the employees health and safety. The policy had provided for general guidelines for all stakeholders --- both Central and State Governments, inspection authorities, employers, R&D and educational institutions, to develop a safety culture.

The policy also deals with the preparation of statutory framework, administrative and technical support, system of incentives, prevention strategies and their monitoring and inclusion of safety health and environment aspects in other related national policies. Importantly, the policy could be reviewed every five years.

In the meantime, according to an International Labour Organisation (ILO) study though the industrialized countries had seen a steady decline in work-related accidents and diseases this was not the case with countries undergoing rapid industrialization and under developed nations where a National Occupational Safety and Health System has often not been properly enforced.

Efforts to tackle occupational safety and health issues are often disintegrated and fragmented and fail to achieve a progressive reduction of work-related fatalities, accidents and diseases, warns the ILO. Its advice is that: “We must do what we can, enforce or enact the laws we need and take action. We must make our work places safe and decent. It’s our common responsibility”. ---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)