By Jaythaleela K
MIRI, July 17: State health director Dr Jamilah Hashim said the department is working closely with the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS) in order to identify and better improve efforts to reduce accident rates involving its staff.
“I hope we can come out with solutions in order to find the cause so that we can better improve prevention programmes,” she said, expressing concern over the increase in work-related commuting accidents involving the state Health Department.
She added, the rising trend in commuting accidents involving Health Department staff nationwide is very much worrying. In 2018, a total of 630 cases were recorded compared to 193 cases in 2014.
For Sarawak, a total of 17 cases were recorded. Dr Jamilah disclosed this at the closing of the two-day World Day for Safety and Health 2019 programme held at Pustaka Miri today (July 17).
Her text of speech was read out by her deputy (public health) Dr Rosemawati Ariffin.
“Nurses top the chart, recording the highest involvement in commuting accidents with 150 cases or 23.8 per cent,” she added.
This is followed by health assistants with 14.8 per cent (93 cases), drivers at 10.8 per cent (68 cases), community nurses at 8.7 per cent (55 cases), assistant medical officers at 7.5 per cent (47 cases) and medical officers at 5.7 per cent (36 cases).
Jamilah added, accidents always have serious implications on economic and social well-being in terms of losing manpower and lowering productivity.
“According to a Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (MIROS) study in 2011, 80.6 per cent of the road accidents were contributed by human factors, followed by the road conditions (13.2 per cent), and vehicles at 6.2 per cent,” she pointed out. — DayakDaily
