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Oral Answer by Mr Zaqy Mohamad Minister of State for Manpower to PQ on Work From Home Injuries

Workplace safety and health Statistics and publications

NOTICE PAPER NO. 2123 FOR THE SITTING ON OR AFTER 1 JUNE 2020
QUESTION NO. 3633 FOR ORAL ANSWER

MP: Mr Patrick Tay Teck Guan
To ask the Minister for Manpower with more work-from-home arrangements, whether the Ministry can provide greater clarity on the treatment of work injury compensation including scope, coverage, insurance and premium when one's home is the workplace.


NOTICE PAPER NO. 2128 FOR THE SITTING ON OR AFTER 2 JUNE 2020 
QUESTION NO. 3647 FOR ORAL ANSWER

MP: Mr Melvin Yong Yik Chye
To ask the Minister for Manpower (a) in 2019, how many hand and finger-related injuries occurred at our workplaces; (b) how many of these workplace accidents resulted in amputations; (c) what were the top three causes for such accidents; and (d) whether the number of such work-related amputations has increased over the past 10 years despite sustained workplace safety campaigns. 

Answer:

 

  1. Mr Speaker, I will take both questions together.  Work-from-Home arrangements do not change an employer’s responsibility for work injury compensation. The key is to ascertain that the injury arose while doing work at home, and not while performing non-work activities at home. This is a fact-finding exercise that is no different from all other WIC claims. 

  2. Work Injury Compensation (WIC) insurance is purchased by employers, and will cover employees who were injured out of and in the course of doing work at home. 

  3. Moving on to Mr Melvin Yong’s question. In 2019, there were 149 hand and finger major injuries at work, of which 123 cases resulted in amputation. This translates to 3.5 cases of hand and finger amputations per 100,000 workers.  While we remain very concerned and are continuing efforts to reduce the injury rate, we are encouraged by the trend of improvements.  Compared to 2012 when the incidence of hand and finger amputations was 4.8 per 100,000 workers, the improvement is about 30%. 

  4. The top three causes for such accidents were: first, lack of effective machine guards; second, lack of adequate safe work procedures, such as lock-out-tag-out procedures to prevent machine activation during servicing; and third, failure to follow safe work procedures due to ignorance or lack of experience, training or disregard for safety.  

  5. To bring down the occurrence of hand and finger injuries, the WSH Council has stepped up public education to employers and workers on the safe use of machinery. Since 2017, 41,200 workers had attended the two mandatory WSH Basic Industrial Safety and Health Course for Supervisors, and the Metalworking Safety Orientation Course.  The WSH Council has also widened and deepened its engagement efforts to jointly organise the Safe Hands Campaign and sector specific WSH workshops with the Singapore Metal and Machinery Association, the Singapore Manufacturing Federation and Singapore Furniture Industries Council since 2018.   To date, 850 companies have pledged their commitment to Safe Hands.  We will continue to engage more companies to come on board.

  6. We are heartened to note that the industry is taking greater ownership to prevent hand and finger injuries. This year, the Singapore Manufacturing Federation spearheaded the first association Safe Hands Campaign. We will keep expanding coverage of our outreach programmes through trade associations and unions.