£300,000 A Year Is Cost Of Eye Accidents

Chronicle (Levin), 12 February 1948, Page 7

£300,000 A Year Is Cost Of Eye Accidents

— — Press Association )

(Per

WELLINGTON, Feb. 10. "Eye accidents are common in industry, but they are nearly all preventable/'- said the Direetor of Indnstriai Hygiene at the Department of .Health (Dr. T. O. Garland), when asked to comment on the reeent repo'rt that such accidents cost the * country "vhst sums 5 ' annually . . Btatistics quoted by Dr. W. *J.0HppeBobertson in his address to the annual conferenee of the Opthalmological -Society of New Zealand in. Dunedin last week indicate that industrial eye aecident? cost New Zealand an average of £300,000 a year. There were, he said, 37 eye accident cases in the Wellington Hospital distriet alone every day, and the average hospital stay of any patient suffering from such injury was three* weeks. '.'For the preveution of most accidents in industry a high degree of iuteiligence on the part of the worker as well as leadership ability on the part oi the employer is required/' said Dr. Garland. ' ' An appeal slionld be made to the intelligence of the worker — there should be no compulsion. Every oojection the worker makes should be met. If he asks for a lighter pair of goggles then they should be . supplie l, if he wants a personal pair then they shouia be given liim. Dr. Garland added that in many instances tlie' sal'ety equipment supplied was 'not satisfactory. "None cah veasonably be expeeted to wear a pair of goggles someone else has been wearing, ' ' he said. "Often they are too heavy. Although mokt grinding wheeis in the engineering trade can be fitted with a shield, the1 vvorkers cannot be expeeted to use it if it is pitted and cracked. " Dr. Garland said that in generai ii was preferable to piace the safety equipment on the machine than to ask the worker to wear it. Figures supplied by the Government Census and Statistics Department show that of the total 14,527 accidents in industry in 1945, 650 were accidents to the eye. Accidents to onlv oue eye totalled 613, to both eyes 37.