Health risks in work environments under debate in Matanzas.

The IV Workshop on Ergonomics, Occupational and Work Safety began with an interesting debate on health risks in the work environments of Matanzas, their incidence in the appearance of diseases and the occurrence of accidents, some of them fatal.

The exposure of employees’ lives due to negligence, lack of knowledge, lack of organization and control by the administrations, among other subjective factors, not dependent on investments, was evidenced in several of the papers presented on the first day of the event, held on the premises of the Provincial Committee of the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CPCTC).

An interesting review of the milestones of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) at the University of Matanzas (UM) was made by professor and Doctor of Science Joaquín García Dihigo, considered the father of Ergonomics in this western province.

In his keynote lecture, the first of the five scheduled for the event, he outlined the progress made in terms of OSH since 1974, when courses on occupational health and safety were introduced in some engineering careers, followed in 1984 by the inclusion of the subject of Ergonomics, and the first patent granted to the UM in 1986 for creating a mental work evaluation equipment.

The academic referred to other equipment designed in the modest laboratory of the Matanzas University, fundamental in diverse studies such as those associated with lighting levels, light sources, and their importance in OSH and in the quality of productions.

The improvement of working conditions of floor maids in the tourist sector, indexes to evaluate thermal pollution in kitchens or noise produced in lodging centers, summarize the content of several doctoral theses.

As a result of UM’s contributions to OSH, he mentioned the book entitled Tell me what you work on and I will tell you what hurts you, in whose pages they state the fact that workers who use the same somatic structure repeatedly will suffer more frequently from pathological ailments associated with them.

He highlighted the project on new occupational diseases that should be incorporated to the Labor Code. «In Cuba only 35 are recognized, while other countries in the continent, such as Mexico (136) and Colombia (144) have more than enough of these ailments. We are dissatisfied, for example, with the fact that tobacco disease is still not recognized here, despite the fact that this nation is a born producer of the famous cigar.

García Dihigo highlighted UM’s consulting role in such interesting topics as the physical load and energy expenditure of baggage handlers at the Juan Gualberto Gómez airport, as well as the evaluation of noise from generators in the industrial zone, among others.

He announced that he is awaiting financing to create a training and consulting center in Ergonomics and Occupational Health at UM, where for some years now there has been a master’s degree in this area, with two graduations and a third is being prepared.

He described as one of the recent achievements the incorporation of the UM to the Latin American Network of Ergonomics and Health Systems, integrated by universities of eight nations and, in addition, the approval of a local development project for the manufacture, commercialization and development of products and services of Occupational Safety.

This initiative arose in response to the fact that much research is done and little is applied. «The country is full of shelved research. The challenge lies in converting science into products, in materializing the results, in putting theoretical innovations into practice».

The second day of the IV Workshop on Ergonomics, Occupational and Labor Health will continue on November 29th precisely at the headquarters of the University of Matanzas, where three French trade unionists, members of the General Confederation of Labor, CGT, are expected to speak.

Among the participants were three French trade unionists.

Photos from the author.

Written by Eva Luna Acosta Armiñán.