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Workers at greater risk of illness

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-07-17 08:36

Occupational illnesses and injuries are costing China 100 billion yuan (12.5 billion U.S. dollars) in direct losses every year, a senior health official has warned.

And the indirect costs could double the figure to 25 billion U.S. dollars, said Li Tao, head of the Occupational Health and Poisons Control Institute under China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The incidence of occupational diseases had become a serious public health issue affecting social stability, said the Workers' Daily on Sunday, which reported Li's call for stricter health and safety measures.

Li called for greater public awareness of the health of migrant workers and better monitoring of small and medium-sized enterprises.

Some local governments had long ignored the prevention and control of occupational diseases, while focusing on economic growth, resulting in poor supervision and law enforcement.

"Many projects were launched without an assessment of their impacts on occupational health and approval criteria were lowered in order to attract investment," Li said.

More than 30 industries were involved in occupational disease control. However, many enterprises, especially small and medium-sized firms, had few or no measures to protect workers' health.

Scientific research and education of occupational health in universities was getting weak and fewer scholars were interested in the subject.  Most occupational healthcare institutes were located in big cities in the eastern regions.

These factors had led to a shortage of occupational health professionals and great disparities in care between the east and west, big and small cities, urban and rural regions, large and small enterprises, and fixed and migrant employees, Li said.

Twenty-six in-service provincial occupational healthcare institutes provided services to 218,000 enterprises with toxic and harmful production.

On average, every institute dealt with 8,385 enterprises and every occupational health professional serves 4,713 workers.

Employees in low-profit and township enterprises had no access to  occupational healthcare, and rural workers in urban cities faced high risks of occupational illness due to their high mobility, Li said.