Last week Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Nicholas Goche revealed that in the first eight months of this year there were 71 deaths at work and 3 598 serious injuries.
He reminded participants in the Safety and Health at Work (SHAW) conference at Rainbow Towers Hotel in Harare that behind these statistics were ordinary people who set out for work one morning and never returned home or who found themselves in hospital.
“These statistics are not just numbers. They talk about people like you and me who left home for work one day but never returned or found themselves on a hospital bed badly injured.” he said.
A lot more needed to be done, he said, to prevent accidents at work.
“A positive paradigm shift in the workplace safety and health culture is essential among social partners of government, business and labour if we are to win this war against accidents,” he said.
It was a stark reminder of the need for greater safety awareness and for employers and employees to do more to prevent workplace accidents and of the fact that behind the statistics are real people.
Last year 76 people died in accidents at work. Altogether 5 666 injuries were recorded. The previous year the death toll was worse.
There were 107 deaths out of 5 141 serious injuries at work. In 2011 there were fewer serious injuries, 4 158 of them, but even so 75 people died.
Despite the concern that is expressed every year about the number of serious injuries and deaths at work and exhortations for employers to show greater concern for their employees and put in place safety and health management systems, little seems to change as far as accidents at work are concerned.
Some companies, particularly some of the larger ones, have in fact made huge strides as far as eliminating accidents are concerned.
The winner of the national safety award for 2013, Zimplats Selous Metallurgical Complex, has gone without any lost time injury for more than 974 days. There are other former award winners who have confirmed through their own experience that zero fatalities and even zero serious injuries at work are possible.
However, only 18 percent of the 2 217 establishments that were assessed for their occupational safety and health performance in 2013 had an occupational safety and health policy. This was an improvement on 2012, where only 13 percent of the 2 223 establishments assessed that year had such a policy.
Despite that improvement, which was a 38 percent improvement, less than a fifth of the establishments assessed had an occupational safety and health (OSH) policy.
Only eight percent had OSH management systems certification. Ten percent had implemented OSH management systems.
Only 13 percent of organisations were running programmes to make workers aware of the hazards at their workplace, leading NSSA occupational safety and health director Rodgers Dhliwayo to exclaim: “Are we surprised we have so much carnage at workplaces?”
Unfortunately, when times are tough, as they are for many companies at the moment, developing occupational safety and health policies, establishing safety and health management systems and spending money on protecting the lives of employees may be seen by some companies as a luxury that they cannot afford.
However, spending time and money on protecting human lives should never be regarded as a luxury. As Minister Goche pointed out, the accident and fatality statistics are more than statistics. Each person who was injured or died was an ordinary person who set out for work one day and never returned or only returned home after spending some time in hospital and possibly in rehabilitation.
Each of the 71 people who died at work in the first eight months of this year had a family that now has to manage without him or her.
In most cases the death could have been prevented had there been adequate safety and health management systems in place.
However, it is not only because of the value that we should place on the life of our fellow human beings that safety and health should not be considered a luxury.
Accidents at work are costly for the company at which they occur. They result in lost production time. They damage the reputation of the company. They result in low staff morale, which in turn tends to affect productivity. Insurance premiums increase with increased risk of injury or death at work.
NSSA’s occupational safety and health division is ready to offer advice and guidance on establishing OSH policies and management systems. It also runs regular courses on occupational safety and health.
Talking Social Security is published weekly by the National Social Security Authority as a public service. There is also a weekly radio programme on social security, PaMheponeNssa/Emoyeni le NSSA, at 6.50 pm every Thursday on Radio Zimbabwe and Friday on National FM. Readers can e-mail issues they would like dealt with in this column to mail@mhpr.co.zwor text them to 0772-307913. Those with individual queries should contact their local NSSA office or telephone NSSA on (04) 706523/5, 706545/9, or 799030/1.