46 BEIJING REVIEW AUGUST 29, 2019 http://www.bjreview.com
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Should the Official Occupational
Disease List Be Expanded?
W
hile some experts have been saying
that diseases like cervical or neck spon-
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occupational diseases, they have been nixed for
now. The committee to promote the Healthy
China Initiative, a program to improve public
health services and food and drug safety, re-
cently announced that as per the Occupational
Health Protection Action Plan, cervical spondy-
losis, frozen shoulder, waist pain and sciatica—
nerve pain in the lower part of the body—
will be considered non-occupational diseases,
which can’t be blamed on the workplace or
the nature of the work. Employees have to get
treatment themselves if they contract any of
these diseases.
Today, ailments like spondylosis have
become common in certain professions,
especially among people who spend too
much time sitting at their desk. Since it is
not an officially recognized occupational
disease, workers diagnosed with it can’t en-
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disease sufferers, nor can they seek com-
pensation on the grounds of injury incurred
at work.
China’s stronger economy and improv-
ing social security system may one day
make it possible for such diseases to be
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occupational diseases, but for now, there
are a lot of obstacles.
Determining a link between a disease
and an occupation is essential to identify
occupational diseases. The proposal to add
new diseases to the list has stirred up a lot
of debate. Some say that while working in
front of computers for long periods of time
may lead to cervical spondylosis, bad habits
can also contribute to it. To simply list cervi-
cal spondylosis as an occupational disease
will be unfair to businesses if their staff get
the problem mostly because of bad habits.
Some people say the changing work
environment requires an upgraded occupa-
tional disease catalogue, which will better
protect workers while encouraging busi-
nesses to adopt a more humane schedule.
However, especially with spondylosis, the
technical difficulty in identifying how it is
contracted is the biggest hurdle to putting
LWRQWKHRIĶFLDOOLVWLingering concerns
Dai Xianren (The Beijing News): The
current occupational disease catalogue,
modified in 2013, covers 132 diseases,
excluding muscle and bone injuries. The
changing work environment demands that
the catalogue be revamped and expanded,
so that it can better protect workers’ health.
Many people would welcome it if cervi-
cal spondylosis was put on the list. Office
staff, teachers and even drivers are all at
risk. If it were listed, it would encourage em-
ployers to pay more attention to preventing
this disease among their employees. So the
odds are high that cervical spondylosis willEHFODVVLĶHGDVDQRFFXSDWLRQDOGLVHDVH
But while diseases like cervical spon-
dylosis and frozen shoulder are closely
related to sedentary work, a lot of bad hab-
its in lifestyle are also to be blamed, such
as smartphone addiction when users’ eyes
are always glued to their phone screens. So
to rush to list cervical spondylosis as an oc-
cupational disease will drastically increase
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might then have to pay for their workers’
bad lifestyle.
A possible scenario is that if it is listed,
businesses will do their best to complicate
and tamper with the approval procedure.
Consequently, the classification will be of
no real help to workers.
The obstacle to classifying spondylosis
as an occupational disease is getting sci-
entific confirmation and protecting both
sides’ legitimate rights. The confirmation
must come after accurate and scientific
investigation and analysis, so that when
workers are compensated, they’ll obtain
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employers’ responsibility, businesses will
not be held accountable.
He Yonghai (Qilu Evening News): In
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as cervical spondylosis are referred to as
diseases that employees themselves have to
take care of. Since it is not yet one of those
officially recognized occupational diseases,
even if employees are diagnosed with spon-
dylosis, they can’t seek compensation.
Some have suggested that if employ-
ers can’t prove that the work or the work
environment is not the cause of employ-
ees’ chronic disease, the disease should
be considered occupational. This is unfair
to employers if their employees’ personal
lifestyles are mostly responsible for the
disease.
Some experts have suggested that
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mitment. The proposal serves as a warning
for people so that they take precautions
against such chronic diseases. Everybody