INJURIES RISK ASSESSMENT FOR EMPLOYEES WITH DISABILITIES AT THE MANUAL TRANSFERRING OF LOADS

Abstract

The employment of persons with permanent functional changes in health state is a difficult issue taking into account the fact that, in addition to objective risks caused by the presence of equipment, vehicles and other sources of potential hazards in the production environment, there are subjective risks related to psychophysiological features of a person. The vulnerability of persons with disabilities, compared to other workers, leads to discrimination in employment on the workplaces, because employers tend to consider them as a potential direct or indirect source of increasing the level of injuries or accidents in the company. The lack of qualified specialists in most Ukrainian enterprises capable to assess the risks and implement the principle of reasonable adaptation of equipment and technological processes to the special needs of persons with disabilities determines the need to develop risk assessment methods that will allow effective management decisions to be made to ensure safety at employees' workplaces.

The article proposes a method that allows assessing the risks of manual transferring of loads and takes into account the limitations of the life activities of persons with disabilities who, according to the conclusions of the medical and social expert commission, can do this work. The risk assessment methodology was developed on the basis of the international standard EN 1005-2 Safety of machinery – Human physical performance and adapted taking into account the peculiarities of the national legal framework. At the calculation of the risk, it is suggested to use a coefficient that depends on the degree of severity of life restrictions in relation to loads on the musculoskeletal system, established by the medical and social expert commission. This allows making the effective preventive decisions. For example, obtaining the value of the R_І^І risk index at the level of 1.42 at the lifting a load weighing 10 kg, which is characterized as an unacceptable risk, can be adjusted both by changing the organization of the workplace and by reducing the weight of the load by 4 kg. 

The use of the methodology allows specialists who are responsible for the safety to assess risks and use the labour potential of employees without harming their health and increasing the level of industrial injuries.