Rationale for Requiring Both Employers and Doctors to Submit Incident Report after Diagnosis of Occupational Disease

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang asked the Minister for Manpower what is the rationale for requiring both employers and doctors to submit an incident report after an occupational disease has been diagnosed but requiring only the employer to report a death or injury arising from a work-related or workplace accident.

Mr Speaker, under the Workplace Safety and Health Act, doctors are required to report to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) patients with occupational diseases (ODs) caused by their work environment or activities related to their work, but not patients with workplace injuries. This is because unlike workplace injuries, a person diagnosed with an OD may have already moved on from the job that caused the OD or be working for a different employer, or may not be working at all, at the time of diagnosis. Requiring doctors to submit such incident reports ensures that these cases are not missed out, helps to expedite the work injury claims process and safeguards employees' interests, as insurers and MOM are informed in a timely manner.

On the other hand, there is no need for doctors to report workplace injuries as the link between the injury, the workplace accident and the employment relationship is generally more direct. Hence the responsibility is placed on employers and occupiers to report these injuries, so there are two reporting channels.

Thank you, Sir. Can I just ask how is MOM making sure that there is no under-reporting of workplace injuries?

Well, I thank the Member. Firstly, I think on the regulation than 10(1)(a) and (c) of the Workplace Safety and Health (Incident Reporting) Regulations, employers and doctors who fail to report diagnosis, for OD, for example, can be fined $500 for the first offence. They could also be jailed up to six months or receive a fine of up to $10,000, if they do not report. So, the laws are there, mandating reporting of injuries as well as ODs.

And at the same time, I think the Member is also aware that when we amended Work Injury Compensation Act (WICA), for example, we have now closed some of these loopholes, where now you have to report from day one of your medical certificate (MC) as opposed to in the past you could – there were some doctors who gamed – some employees who gamed when they did not have to report short duration MCs for example. We have closed the loopholes as and when we find them and we would like to work with non-governmental organisations (NGOs), members of the public or even employees themselves, who could also report to us some of these cases so that we can better understand if there are any loopholes. But at this moment, it does not look as such because we have closed as many loopholes as possible and reporting is mandated from day one.

I assure the Member that the process is in place, but what is more important is that we want to keep the process lean so that it reduce the amount of duplication. The Member himself, also said in this House during the Committee of Supply that some of our healthcare workers already quite stretched. So, the last thing we want is to add administrative burden to them when we do not really need it.