Mechanic workers at the Export Mechanical Tool Joint Stock Company in Hanoi (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – Diagnoses of occupational diseases are on
the rise in Vietnam and several new occupations have been found to cause
and deafness, according to the Ministry of Labour,
Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA).
Some 157,000 labourers in 42 localities had occupational diseases
by the end of last year. Occupational was detected in 64.4 percent of
the labourers, followed by silicosis (10.2 percent), and occupational chronic
bronchitis (5.1 percent).
Reports from 57 localities who medically examined 1.2 million
showed high percentages of respiratory diseases (25.6 percent of the
total number of patients), digestive diseases (16 percent), and musculoskeletal
diseases (8.3 percent).
38-year-old Nguyen Ngoc Bao in Bien Hoa city recently lost 11 percent
of his hearing after 20 years working at a steel production company in the Bien
Hoa 2 Industrial Park.
Despite having tinnitus prior to discovering the illness, Bao
thought it was not serious and continued working.
Bao’s illness could have been detected earlier if he had got an
annual health check, said doctor Nguyen Thi Thu Sang, head of the Occupation
Disease Department at the Dong Nai Centre for Occupational Health and
Environment Protection.
Most workers do not get health checks until their illness is
serious because they are not aware of the risks of the occupational diseases
they face, according to Sang.
Some are willing to take their chances in exchange for high salary
and good benefits.
It is difficult for medical units to conduct periodical health
checks on factory workers if their employers are not willing to help, according
to Sang.
“Factories and enterprises are not paying enough attention to work
safety and haven’t enforced the use of work safety equipment such as earplugs
and masks,” she said.
Some enterprises chose to take their employees to cheap medical
facilities instead of those equipped with modern equipment and skilled staff,
which reduces the quality of health checks, she said.
Survey results from the HCM City Public Health Institute on 1,000
tailoring factory workers show that 93 percent feel exhausted after work, 47 percent
have experienced body fatigue, 15 percent are burnt out, and some 80 percent
have musculoskeletal pains.
However, less than 10 percent of workers who were surveyed had
received healthcare, the results show.
Representatives from the Ministry of Health (MoH) said not enough
attention had been paid to ensuring work safety and providing healthcare for
labourers.
Limited awareness of both employers and labourers of work safety
and hygiene, as well as limited financial resources, are some reasons for poor
prevention of the diseases, the MoH said.
Some 2.3 million work-related deaths occur worldwide every year,
two million of which are caused by occupational diseases, according to
statistics from the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Occupational diseases haven’t caught as much public attention as
labour accidents although they cause six times as many deaths, according to the
ILO.
The organisation called for an “urgent and strong” global campaign
to prevent the rise of last month. -VNA
Source: VietnamPlus
