2024-05-09
25 分钟Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is round table.
Occupational disease, a term that we sometimes use rather casually to describe some of our minor ailments, is actually linked to a serious matter pertaining to workers health and welfare in China.
The country has built and is trying to improve a national system for the monitoring and prevention of occupational diseases and hazards.
Hello, I'm Li Ming, and this is roundtable.
Today with Neil Hulling and Joshua Cotterell, we take a look at the steps we've taken to better protect workers from occupational diseases.
Now, occupational diseases is not a rare word that sometimes we use it to describe the ailments that we are experiencing.
For instance, as radio personalities were quite prone to feel uncomfortable at the throat area.
And the same does for teachers who have to shout and discipline their teachers, you know, and office workers often complain about maybe neck pain or back pain.
And very often we use the words zhi bing occupational disease to describe the kind of scenarios or the kind of pains that we're going through.
But in fact, the real term, the zhi bing, the occupational disease, actually is a very, very serious matter.
It's actually related to, like, workers welfare, working environment, and a whole set of regulations with regard to protection and prevention of occupational diseases.
And so we begin today's discussion by clarifying some concepts or definitions.
Yes, by law, occupational health deals with all aspects of health and safety in workplace, and has a strong focus on primary prevention of hazardous according to WHO, which means that health and safety are indispensable elements for occupational health.
So, like has said, when it comes to generally or the general definition of occupational diseases, we think about the kind of disease that we're prone to because of our occupation, maybe because of gesture or your working habits.
But the definition, by law actually talks about the hazardous element in the environment, or the possible safety risks that you might encounter if you are doing the job, which makes it responsible for the employer to provide employee with proper environment when they conduct activities and when they are actually in their working place.
Here in China, the country has the largest working population in the world, and most workers spend half their lives working.
So the chinese government prioritized occupational health in the action plan of Healthy China 2030 as one of its 15 major health projects.
And the reason we're talking about it today is that the National Health Commission has held a press conference saying that China has established and improved a national system for monitoring occupational diseases and hazardous, as well as reporting occupational diseases since 2019.
According to a 2023 report, Chinas Catalog of Occupational Diseases, published in 2013, now contain 132 kinds of occupation illness belonging to ten major types.