I almost missed this article, and I am glad I didn’t. This is what I love about reading newspapers in the Gulf, you find information in the most unexpected places.
So you are led to believe that the article is about an increase of injuries in the workplace. What it also contains is some fascinating information I’ve been wondering about – traffic injuries.
I have this unsubstantiated theory that the people who suffer the majority of traffic accidents would be the people who drive more recklessly, and have weaker driving skills – perhaps failing to signal? Perhaps failing to check their rear view mirrors before passing? Perhaps driving too fast for road conditions? I know, I know, go figure, I think the roads are a place for grown-ups, people who understand that by sharing the road peaceably, we all get where we want to go.
The nationality with the largest percentage of injuries are Qatteri @ 21%
The nationality of almost all of the work environment injuries are – no kidding – expatriate.
Almost 100% of the Qattari injuries are driving related. Driving related injuries account for 32% of the total injuries treated, road related + work related.
The second largest nationality with injuries is the Nepalese – 16% of the injuries. Almost all of their injuries, along with Indians – 14%, Egyptians – 7% and Pakistanis – 5% – are work related. 32% of those injuries are from falling from a height. The work related injuries, according to Dr. Raghad, are in proportion to the nationality proportion of the population.
So the question I ask is – If the nationality with the greatest percentage of injuries, 21%, also falls into one of the two highest catagories – road injuries – 32% of all injuries, and if these injuries are totally preventable – wouldn’t it make sense to enforce the existing traffic laws?
I don’t see a lot of Qatteri women driving, so I would hazard a guess that most of these injuries are young men. With Qatteri men already a minority of the population in Qatar, doesn’t it make sense to protect that priceless national resource with increased driving education, supervision, and strict traffic law enforcement?
More than 50pc of all injuries work-related
Web posted at: 12/29/2009 1:25:26
Source ::: The Peninsula
Dr Ahmad Al Shatti, Director of Occupational Health Department at Ministry of Health, Kuwait, gives a workshop at Supreme Council of Health yesterday.Shaival Dalal
DOHA: More than 50 percent of all injuries in Qatar are caused by work-related accidents. The most common among such incidents is falling from a height that causes 32 percent of the injuries, which is equal to the number of injuries caused by traffic accidents.
This was disclosed by officials of the Hamad Trauma Center at the Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) at a workshop on occupational health held at the Supreme Council of Health (SCH) premises yesterday.
Road accidents and fall together cause 64 percent of the injuries- 32 percent each. The third largest victims are pedestrians- 11 percent. Six percent of the injuries are caused by a falling object that mostly hit people on a work site and equal number of cases are attributed to burns. Three per cent of the injuries are caused by accidents involving All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs).
Expatriate workers remain to be the biggest sufferers from injuries. However, nationality wise, the highest number of cases are reported among Qataris- 21 percent- most of whom were victims of road accidents.
Nepalese stood second, with 16 per cent of the injuries, followed by Indians- 14 per cent. The other two most affected nationalities are Egyptians (7 percent) and Pakistanis (five percent).
“Work- related accidents and injuries are the highest among Nepalese, because they are the single largest nationality being employed in the construction sector. Other nationalities are also affected proportionate to their numbers in the industry,” Dr Raghad, Injury Prevention Director at the Hamad Trauma Center told The Peninsula on the sidelines of the workshop.
The workshop attended by representatives from the Labour Department, HMC, Qatar Petroleum, RasGas, Ministry of Environment, Medical Commission, Qatar Airways, among other organisations discussed ways to improve the occupational health services in Qatar.
THE PENINSULA
Lest you think I have a think against male Qatteri drivers, I don’t. The older Qatteri male drivers are very gallant, very gentlemanly, on the roads. They have manners, and graciousness. From time to time, I also run across well mannered young Qatteri drivers. They use their turn signals. They wear seat belts. The allow other people to zipper-in. It breaks my heart, in Qatar, in Kuwait, that so many of their young men lose their lives on the roads, or suffer horrible injuries, injuries which take months, even years, from which to recover. What a tragic waste.
December 29, 2009
Posted by intlxpatr |
Bureaucracy, Community, Doha, Education, ExPat Life, Family Issues, Health Issues, Kuwait, Law and Order, Living Conditions, Qatar, Random Musings, Safety, Social Issues, Statistics, Work Related Issues |
4 Comments
I needed some escape time, so I started The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, a mystery by Stieg Larsson, set in Sweden. I love these detective stories set in other countries; I can learn something as I pass the time reading an exciting mystery. And part of my heritage is Swedish, so I thought this should really be fun.
It wasn’t, at least not at the beginning. At the beginning, I didn’t like any of the characters, and they were always eating sandwiches that sounded awful, like liverwurst and egg. I felt like the characters didn’t have any moral center, like they drifted from day to day without neither conscience nor a plan. The main character, Mikael Blomkvist, is about to go to prison for libel; he printed a story about a major industrialist which turned out to be false, and he protected his source. We don’t really know the whole story, not until the end, which makes it hard to evoke a lot of sympathy for Blomkvist.
He is contacted by another industrialist, and asked to solve a mystery, if possible, about the disappearance, 40 years ago, of his niece, Harriet Vanger. Blomkvist would investigate under the cover of writing an autobiography of his employer and his family. There are members of the family who object. In many ways, it isn’t a very nice family.
Blomkvist gets an assistant, a deeply troubled and flawed young woman, Lisbeth Salander, with a gift for investigation. There is a lot of violence, sexual violence, and mutilation of animals. One of the points I credit Larsson with making is the amount of violence against women in Sweden, which goes on under a seemingly civilized veneer. The truth, as I see it, is that there is violence against women in every society; in some it is better documented than in others. In some, it is better punished that others. It exists in all societies, in all countries.
Another think I ended up liking about the book was that the main character, Blomkvist, who writes financial analysis, takes the press to task for printing what passes for financial news without critically reading and evaluating, which he feels is a responsibility of the press. At one point, as people quail with fear that the stock exchange will drop dramatically, he is interviewed and explains that the stock market is based on perceptions, while the Swedish economy is based on production and services; that while the markets may fail, the economy can still be going strong.
Slowly, the book tightens up. Actually, by the end, I was hooked. The only question in my mind is – did I like it enough to read another?
The book is available, new, from Amazon.com at $6.00 plus shipping.
December 29, 2009
Posted by intlxpatr |
Books, Character, Civility, Community, Crime, Cross Cultural, Detective/Mystery, Family Issues, Financial Issues, Friends & Friendship, Interconnected, Living Conditions, Relationships, Values, Women's Issues | Sweden |
5 Comments
Here There and Everywhere 