TITULO: Adherencia a la dieta mediterránea en niñas practicantes de gimnasia rítmica
ESTANCIAS EN CENTROS EXTRANJEROS Y NACIONALES
St John Holt (2001: 13) states that there are many good reasons for measuring H&S performance. Measuring can enable management to:
• identify the casual factors involved in injury and loss; • locate areas where controls are not working adequately; • have a basis for comparing trends;
• describe the level of health and safety within the organization; • predict future health and safety problems;
• evaluate the success of the control programme;
• maximise cost-effectiveness of decisions on the allocation of resources; • assess the costs and injuries and losses, and
• benchmark against other similar organizations.
1.4.1 Accident and Severity Rates
Accident frequency and severity rates are the two essential standards required for reviewing accident statistics. These rates show on average how often disabling injuries occur in any particular industry - the accident frequency rate, and also the seriousness of the time loss involved - the accident severity rate.
The formulae for calculating frequency and severity rates enable the computation of the rates used most often in all sectors of industry including the construction industry.
The frequency rate is calculated by using the following formula:
Disabling Injury Incidence Rate (DIIR) = No. of Disabling Injuries x 200 000 No. of Hours worked
The frequency rate assists management to determine how frequent disabling injuries occur and what steps need to be taken to remedy the situation.
The severity rate is calculated by using the following formula:
Lost Workdays Severity Rate (LWSR) = No. of Workdays Lost x 200 000 No. of Hours Worked
The severity rate indicates to management the seriousness of the disabling injury and the amount of time that will be lost by the worker.
TABLE1.7: Frequency rates for lost time accidents per Industry (Compensation Commissioner, 1998: 11-12)
Frequency Rate Frequency Rate
Industry
1998 1997
Fishing 27.4 23.1
Mining 12.9 14.9
Wood 10.3 11.4
Glass, Bricks and Tiles 8.8 10.0
Transport 8.7 9.8
Iron and Steel 6.8 7.9
Building and Construction 6.5 6.5
Food, Drink and Tobacco 6.4 7.5
Local Authorities 5.5 6.6
Chemical 4.9 5.7
All industries 4.7 5.4
Agriculture and Forestry 4.6 5.2
Printing and paper 4.3 5.2
Leather 3.8 4.5
Textiles 3.5 3.1
Trade and Commerce 3.0 3.4
Personal Services and Hotels 2.7 3.1
Entertainment and Sport 2.6 2.6
Diamonds, Asbestos and
Bitumen 2.5 3.1
Charitable, Religious, Political
and Trade Organisations 2.2 2.2
Educational Services 2.0 2.5
Medical services 1.1 2.3
Professional Services 0.9 1.0
Banking, Finance and
Insurance 0.5 0.7
According to the COID Report (CC, 1998: 11), the latest statistics available regarding the average hours worked is for the year 1997. A sample of
1 681 597 (office staff excluded) was taken from the manufacturing and construction industry in 1997. The average hours worked per week were extracted and the average time worked during 1998 was calculated by multiplying the average weekly hours by 50.
Due to the lack of risk exposure data being available for the other industries, the average hours exposed to risk of the above sample was used in the case of the remaining industries. Certain industries in the tables were not represented in the sample and the general exposure figure was applied. The average time worked per industry was assumed to be constant during 1997 and therefore when multiplied by the total number of workers in the industry 1998 the number of hours of exposure were determined.
TABLE 1.8: Severity rates for lost time per Industry
(Compensation Commissioner, 1998: 12-13)
Severity Rate Severity Rate
Industry
1998 1997
Fishing 9.8 1.6
Mining 2.6 3.4
Wood 1.2 1.3
Glass, Bricks and Tiles 1.2 1.3
Transport 1.9 1.9
Iron and Steel 1.0 1.1
Building and Construction 1.5 1.3
Food, Drink and Tobacco 0.9 1.1
Local Authorities 0.8 1.0
Chemical 0.6 0.7
All industries 0.8 0.9
Agriculture and Forestry 0.6 0.8
Printing and paper 0.4 0.5
Leather 0.4 0.2
Textiles 0.2 0.2
Trade and Commerce 0.4 0.5
Personal Services and Hotels 0.8 1.0
Entertainment and Sport 0.4 0.2
Diamonds, Asbestos and Bitumen 1.1 1.2
Charitable, Religious, Political and
Trade Organisations 0.1 0.1
Educational Services 0.2 0.3
Medical services 0.1 0.2
Professional Services 0.2 0.3
Banking, Finance and Insurance 0.1 0.1
Table 1.7 indicates that the fishing industry in 1997 and 1998 consecutively had a frequency rate higher than any other industry and was followed by mining and the wood industry. The building and construction industry has remained constant between 1997 and 1998 with an average rate of 6.5 and was ranked seventh respectively.
The severity rate indicates the number of days that are lost due to accidents for every 1 000 hours worked. This indicates the seriousness of the disabling injury and the amount of time lost by the worker.
When comparing accident severity rates in Table 1.8, it is once again noticed that the industry with the highest severity rate is fishing, followed by mining and transport.
The building and construction industry recorded 1.37 and 1.59 in 1997 and 1998, respectively and was ranked seventh for this period. Although the construction industry has remained fairly constant with an average of 1.48 over this period, the severity rate is still unacceptably high. The total number of man-days lost as a result of the 1998 accidents for all carriers is shown in Table 1.9.
TABLE 1.9: Total number of days lost as a result of accidents in 1998 (Compensation Commissioner, 1998: 8)
Cases Days
Reported 1 805 992
Unreported 109 635
Permanent and fatal 16 737 276
Total 18 652 903
At the signing of the OH&S accord in Midrand, the Labour Minister reiterated that business will need to go beyond compliance in order to underpin the new Safety Health and Environment (SH&E) accord signed with government and labour (Mdladlana, 2002: 7).
The accord was signed between organised labour represented by the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (COSATU), National Congress of Trade Unions (NACTU) and the Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA), organized business represented by Business South Africa (BSA) and National African Federated Chamber of Commerce (NAFCOC) as well as the DoL, binding each signatory to working towards creating an environment conducive to the promotion of healthy OH&S in the workplace. Government has endeavoured to provide a legislative framework, develop programmes aimed at preventing OH&S accidents, provide inspectorate services and support to those affected by accidents.
The new accord according to Minister Mdladlana, also declares that “Together in Partnership “, the DoL will strive to realise the following ideals:
• a healthy and safe working environment; • development of best practices in OH&S, and
• elimination of incidents and fatalities in the workplace.
Having placed OH&S on top of the agenda, government has undertaken to set aside resources to train OH&S inspectors in order to increase their capacity to carry out their work competently. The question can thus be asked: Is this being done?
TABLE 1.10: Employment and Vacancies by Programme – 2002 (Department of Labour, 2003: 8)
Programme Establishment Employees
(No.)
Vacancy rate (%)
Administration 426 321 24.6
Occupational Health & Safety 46 24 47.8
Social Insurance 1 060 958 9.6
Employment & Skills
Development 422 355 15.8
Labour Relations 124 74 40.3
Labour Market Policy 10 10 -
Service Delivery 5 060 4 284 15.6
Auxiliary services 42 35 16.6
TOTAL 7 206 6 061 15.9
The Minister further states that the DoL embraces the principles enshrined in the International Labour Organisation (ILO) convention 155 and 176, covering:
• integrational management; • corporate culture;
• awareness;
• enabling legislation, and • training and co-operation.
According to Strydom (2002: 40) a major contributing factor to the poor record of the construction industry is the scarcity of OH&S inspectorate expertise.
industry due to the low priority that employers place on OH&S, as well as the poor remuneration offered as a consequence of this.
Strydom (2002: 41) further states that the DoL, is for a variety of reasons, experiencing a serious staff shortage, high turnover of staff and a lack of experienced skilled staff. This has led to a situation where employers no longer believe that the DoL has any ‘teeth’ and consequently OH&S in the workplace is suffering. The vacancy rate is presented in Table 1.10.
Within this context, it appears that the DoL inspectorate is understaffed and not carrying out its duties effectively with regards to OH&S in the construction industry. It is therefore important and urgent that this matter be addressed and that a well-researched model be developed and implemented, which would assure and improve the effectiveness of the DoL inspectorate, which would ultimately lead to a reduction in accidents and improve OH&S statistics.
Accident prevention relies instead on sampling the mass of OH&S related behaviours which lie upstream and which precede any particular incident.
Table 2.1 illustrates the upstream → downstream sequence postulated by Krause (1990: 40) - culture at the upstream end influences management system, which influences exposure, which may or may not result in incidents at the end point.
It is also notable that ‘inspections’, an important function of the DoL inspectorate is positioned within management system and exposure and occurs downstream of culture.