Challenges in effective reporting of occupational diseases of municipal council workers in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Municipal Councils (MC) in Sri Lanka have hardly any occupational diseases (ODs) reporting system to trace the ODs among municipal council workers. For last several decades there has been no reported cases of occupational diseases (ODs). Therefore, need of mitigation, litigation or compensation had not arisen. When compared to the similar scenarios in the neighboring countries, occupational disease reporting system operated in municipal councils in Sri Lanka is exceptionally inactive. It is pretty clear that the occupational disease cases among MC workers were not reported not due to non-availability of OD patients. There should be an effective reporting system for the workers to get the benefit of it. Now the problem prevailing in the MCs is that, the MC is legally bound to comply with the Factories Ordinance of 1942, where occupational diseases as well as occupational accidents should be properly recorded and informed to the factories engineer, but the mechanism utilized to trace the potential patients of OD is not adequate to fulfil that objective. Only thing happened is the loss incurred due to occupational diseases is compensated by the other resources of the Municipal Councils. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has been encouraging the use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) which has created opportunities for keeping health records in an easily accessible mode for the benefit of the patient and for the public health surveillance. It is highly recommended to include the individual's occupation and industry into the standards of EHR. However, at this time, the EHR is continually evolving and the standards have not been finalized and established. As the collection of occupation and industry is not yet a standard in the EHR, this method of surveillance was not among the listed recommendations. However, should occupation and industry become standard variables captured in the EHR, this issue will be reviewed, and the opportunities and limitations provided by this data source will be explored fully for occupational disease surveillance.