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LCQ2: Occupational injuries
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     Following is a question by the Hon Leung Ka-lau and a written reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, in the Legislative Council today (April 22):

Question:

     Section 15 of the Employees' Compensation Ordinance (Cap. 282) stipulates that an employer must give notice to the Commissioner for Labour (the Commissioner) of an accident of work injury within a prescribed period from the day on which it has come to the knowledge of the employer that the accident has occurred.  If the accident results in the incapacity of the employee for a period exceeding three days or the death of the employee, the employer must give notice by using the specified Form 2.  Moreover, persons injured in work accidents usually go to public hospitals for medical treatment, and the Employees' Compensation Assessment Boards (ECABs) appointed by the Labour Department assess for them the required sick leave and the percentage of permanent loss of earning capacity.  In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

(a) of the number of copies of Form 2 received in each of the past five years by the Commissioner from employers, with a breakdown by nature of injury, part of the body injured, type of accident and agents involved as filled out in the forms;

(b) whether it knows the details (including the number of bed-days, number of discharges and deaths, number of accident and emergency services attendances, number of specialist out-patient (clinical) attendances, number of general out-patient attendances, number of physiotherapy services attendances, number of occupational therapy (physical and psychiatry) services attendances and number of radiotherapy services attendances) of the services of public hospitals used respectively by employees and self-employed persons in each of the past five years due to injury in work accidents, as well as the respective percentages of such numbers in the relevant totals;

(c) whether it knows the total costs, as calculated on the basis of unit costs set out in the Hospital Authority's annual reports, incurred by public hospitals in each of the past five years to provide services to persons injured in work accidents; and

(d) of the respective numbers of employees and self-employed persons, who had been injured in work accidents, for whom ECABs conducted the said assessment in each of the past five years?

Reply:

President,

(a) The Labour Department (LD) can only provide detailed occupational injuries statistics for the first three quarters of 2008 because the full-year statistics for 2008 will only be available at the end of this month (April).  During the said period, there were a total of 32,056 occupational injuries.  In the years from 2004 to 2007, there were 44,025, 44,267, 46,937 and 43,979 occupational injuries respectively.  The breakdown of occupational injuries by "nature of injury", "part of body injured", "type of accident" and "agents involved" between 2004 to 2007 and the first three quarters of 2008 are set out at Annexes 1 to 4 respectively.

(b) & (c) Statistics provided by the Hospital Authority (HA) on services for work-related injuries and the relevant cost of such services are set out in Annex 5.  However, the HA does not have complete statistics on the treatment for work-related injuries, nor the breakdown by employees and self-employed persons.  The HA also does not have statistics on general out-patient attendances and radiotherapy services attendances arising from work-related injuries.

(d) While employees' compensation assessments are not provided for self-employed persons, the number of injured employees assessed by the Employees' Compensation Assessment Boards in the past five years are as follows:

     2004     16,470
     2005     17,284
     2006     18,202
     2007     17,060
     2008     15,814

Ends/Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Issued at HKT 11:09

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