MIRI: The rising trend of commuting accidents involving staff from the health department nationwide is very worrying.
In 2018, 630 cases were recorded nationwide compared to 193 cases in 2014.
For Sarawak, 17 cases were recorded in 2018, said Sarawak Health director Dr Jamilah Hashim during the launch of World Day for Safety and Health 2019, Sarawak Health Department level held at Pustaka Miri yesterday.
“Nurses topped the chart with 150 cases or 23.8 per cent,” she said in her text of speech read out by her deputy (public health) Dr Rosemawati Ariffin.
“This is followed by health assistants with 14.8 per cent (93 cases), drivers 10.8 per cent (68 cases), community nurse 8.7 per cent (55 cases), assistant medical officer 7.5 per cent (47 cases) and medical officers 5.7 per cent (36 cases).”
Jamilah added that accidents always had serious implications on the economic and social well-being in terms of losing manpower and productivity.
“According to a study conducted by the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research (Miros) in 2011, 80.6 per cent of road accidents were due to human factors, followed by road conditions (13.2 per cent), and vehicles at 6.2 per cent,” she pointed out.
Therefore, she added that the department would work together with Miros to conduct a comprehensive study on factors contributing to road accidents involving their personnel.
“I hope we can come out with solutions in order to find the cause so that we could better improve the prevention programmes,” she said.
