The Star Online, 21 November 2012
KUCHING: Each year, thousands of fingers are lost in industrial accidents or accidents at workplaces in Sarawak.
State Occupational Safety and Health director Mohd Hatta Zakaria said according to Social Security Corporation (Socso) records, many workers had their fingers cut off accidentally while handling machinery.
“Socso’s records show that 89 companies have regular accidents among their employees with four to 13 cases by the same industry last year.
“The wood-based industry has the highest number of accidents in the state and majority of these cases involved loss of fingers to machinery,” he said when officiating at a monitoring workshop for small and medium enterprises (SME) here yesterday.
Occupational Safety and Health Department (DOSH) and Socso jointly held the three-day (Nov 20 to 22) workshop to raise awareness among SMEs about the importance of occupational safety and health measures at workplaces.
It also hoped to identify and address problems faced by SMEs in implementing occupational safety and health measures.
Hatta said the agriculture and mining sectors recorded the second and third highest numbers in industrial accidents in the state.
He said reported accident cases in Sarawak were 340 last year out of which 32 involved deaths; 270, non-permanent disability; and 38, permanent disability.
As of September this year, the state already recorded 367 accidents, which was an increase, he added.
“From that figure, 27 involved deaths; 1,921 non-permanent disability; and 29, permanent disability,” he said, adding that the statistics accounted for one fifth of the total cases reported nationwide, which stood at 2,214.
He pointed out that this showed that the level of compliance with occupational safety and health practices was still low in Sarawak compared to other states in the country.
Hatta said since the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994 was introduced, the rate of industrial accidents or accidents at workplaces had reduced significantly nationwide from 10 cases for every 1,000 workers in 2002 to seven cases for every 1,000 workers in 2007.
“In 2011, the accident rate further dropped to 3.4 workers for every 1,000 workers,” he said.
However, the accident rate involving deaths had increased to 15 for every 100,000 workers, he observed.
Clearly, there had to be more educational approaches made with regard to the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994 for industries in the state to have a more positive impact on workers’ safety, he added.
