Working over the performance and the limit bring occupational disease!
The 64th period session of the '1 Topic 1 Guest' event was held, which is organized by Üsküdar University Occupational Safety, Occupational Health and Environmental Health Application and Research Center (ÜSGÜMER). İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) Occupational Health and Safety Branch Manager Dr. Özkan Kaan Karadağ participated as a speaker in the online event. Pointing out that people have limits to movement, access and recovery, Karadağ stated that cumulative occupational diseases and cumulative problems will occur if a person encounters an event that exceeds the speed of recovery. There are occupational diseases because we make people work beyond their performance and limits."
At the online event, IMM Occupational Health and Safety Branch Manager Dr. Özkan Kaan Karadağ made a presentation titled 'Occupational diseases in Türkiye's second century: Two steps forward and one step back'.
"This definition is much more accurate than the definition that is common today."
Speaking about occupational health and occupational diseases that occur in this profession, Dr. Özkan Kaan Karadağ stated that "If an illness lasts longer than you expect, it may be related to work impairment, or if a disease is more common in a certain group, the characteristics of that group may be influential. Many definitions can be made for the definition of occupational disease, but generally, for many countries and many schools, they are diseases that are caused by the factors that the person encounters during the work and therefore are more common in certain professions and fields of study than in the general society. That is how we can put it, and that is the correct definition. Or at least, it is much more accurate than the definition that is more common today."
"Because we make people work beyond their performance and limits"
Dr. Özkan Kaan Karadağ talked about why occupational diseases occur. Karadağ said: "There are occupational diseases because we make people work beyond their performance and limits. Why are we going over performance limits? We go over the limits to make more profits. As such, you produce more per capita and get more added value. This is basically the approach, or basically the cause of occupational diseases. If you start hurting a person faster than the speed of the healing process, the cumulative problem that arises in the workplace will explode as a disease. This is basically what we are experiencing. Charlie Chaplin explains this very well in his 'Modern Times' video. What do people's limits mean? Limit, in fact, is a very broad statement. In other words, a person has movement limits, there are access limits, and there are recovery limits. The 'recovery speed' is actually a personal feature. If a person encounters an event that exceeds this speed of recovery, we will encounter cumulative occupational diseases, cumulative diseases, and cumulative problems."
"We face an occupational disease like a mere flea”
Talking about the situation of occupational diseases in Türkiye, Dr. Özkan Kaan Karadağ expressed that "I do not know what year the number 597 belongs to, but it does not matter because it has never exceeded 1000. We faced d with an occupational disease, so to speak, 'a mere flea'. According to the number of employees in Türkiye, we need to be able to detect three hundred thousand occupational diseases per year. Undetected occupational diseases will appear with some injuries and injuries. However, is this number enough data? Let's look at a little bit of history. Since the 80s, we have encountered different interventions related to occupational health in Türkiye. For example, in the mid-1980s, the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) started training for workplace physicians. If we look back a little further, in 1978, a regulation was issued regarding the duties and responsibilities of workplace physicians, it was an obligation set by the International Labor Organization (ILO). However, in 1978, the Turkish Employers' Association (TISK) initiated stay of execution and court proceedings. It was only in 1984 that the regulation on the duties and responsibilities of workplace physicians came into force."
"We failed..."
Dr. Özkan Kaan Karadağ; "In fact, if you look at the Occupational Health and Safety Management System, a lot of work has been done in terms of the country. Inspectors have been trained, and a number of trains have been served to raise awareness. These trains toured the whole country in the name of occupational health and safety; however, it did not happen. Despite all these efforts, there was no decrease in the number of occupational accidents and no increase in the number of occupational diseases. In other words, the main performance criteria in occupational accidents are the numbers and the decrease in the lethality rate. Unfortunately, neither the numbers nor the speeds have decreased, nor the lethality rates have decreased in our country. We failed."
The event ended with the answers to the questions of the participants.
Üsküdar News Agency (ÜNA)