Open AccessDirect Medical Costs and Working Days Lost due to Non‐Fatal Occupational Injuries in Denizli, Turkey
Author(s) -
Serinken Mustafa,
Karcioglu Ozgur,
Zencir Mehmet,
Turkcuer Ibrahim
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of occupational health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.664
H-Index - 59
ISSN - 1348-9585
DOI - 10.1539/joh.50.70
Subject(s) - emergency department , medical school , medicine , family medicine , emergency medicine , medical education , nursing
Occupational accidents are avoidable and cause a great impact on productivity and on the economy, as well as great suffering. Death tolls are four to five times higher in developing countries than in developed countries. Every year, millions of workers suffer injuries and thousands experience deaths in developing regions . Little data can be found in the literature regarding OI in developing countries and their costs along with average working days lost (Brazil 2, , Poland, Malaysia, Lebanon, Taiwan, Nicaragua, China ). Employment statistics for March 2007 state that the sectors with the most intensive employment figures in Turkey are services, agriculture, industry and construction. The Social Security Institution (SSK) is the biggest state-run institution established to manage the social security issues of Turkish workers. Unregistered workers constitute up to 46.2% of the total working population in March 2007. SSK databases cite that 73,923 OI occurred in 2005. These were highest in the metal and machinery sector, 10,283 incidents (13.9%), followed by the construction sector with 6,483 (8.7%) and coal mining with 6,011 (8%). The male-to-female ratio of OI in Turkey is 21.1 with the highest rate of women injured in the textile industry. The weighted average age of victims is 29 for women and 31 for men . Populated by 850,000 people, Denizli is one of the outstanding industrialized cities of western Turkey and has a high rate of OI. The predominance of the textile industry in the city affects the male-to-female OI ratio (7.7 vs 21.1 in Turkey) . More than 1,500 admissions due to OI are recorded in the health facilities annually in Denizli . Three big hospitals operate in the city, including one Universitybased research hospital. This hospital received approximately one third of all OI recorded to have occurred in the city. The University hospital has 24-h coverage regarding advanced interventions for OI such as reimplantation and microsurgery, which the other two hospitals do not have. Medical costs of OI represent a neglected area of research in Turkey. Furthermore, health institutions lack reliable and regularly updated medical registries with respect to OI. The present study aimed to clarify the current situation of OI in the middle-sized industrialized city of Denizli in west Turkey.