Culled from Leadership newspaper
Discussions were yesterday flagged-off in Abuja on whether to include workers who contracted HIV/AIDS in the course of their work for compensation in the Employees Compensation Act (ECA 2010).
This was the highlight of the National Social Insurance Trust Fund and the Nigerian Employers Consultative Association’s Interactive Enlightenment Forum and Awards ceremony held yesterday in Abuja.
Delivering the key note address on the theme: “HIV/AIDS in the workplace and link to occupational safety and health”, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) HIV/AIDS desk officer, Dr Bruno Onosode, disclosed that every day, 6,300 people die worldwide as a result of occupational disease and injuries, including HIV/AIDS.
While flagging-off the debate whether to include workers who contract HIV in the course of their work in the 2010 Workers Compensation Act, she, however, said there were hurdles to pass in order to prove that the infection was actually contracted in the workplace.
Also in his remarks, the vice president, Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Mr Issa Aremu, said workers whose job description was not stationary but highly mobile, including truck drivers and health workers should be liable to compensation if they contract HIV in the course of their work.
He said that there are jobs that are exposed to more risks especially nurses and medical workers, saying, “We don’t need to debate it.”
Aremu who noted that the Act was coming at the right time, said, “the whole idea of this Employees Compensation Act, 2010 is that even with the best safety measures, accident can still occur at the place of work and if it does, it doesn’t leave you at the vagaries of the old insurance scheme.”
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