Hi everyone I hope you are all getting better, I have just handed in the two final assignments for my Occupational Health Safety & Welfare course, hopefully I should have my diploma shortly. I have written the phrases consultative arrangements, participative arrangements, continuous improvement, and stakeholders that many times lately you wouldn’t believe it. Essentially it seems to be about working out what is most important and ensuring that it is incorporated into the system of work. If safety is important we will have safe systems of work. If maximum profit is most important then safety will be secondary.
If there is a work injury system (stakeholder) which is supposedly looking after the interests of workers (stakeholders) and placing the responsibility of the health and safety onto the owners of workplaces (stakeholders) but there is a condition that the medical authorities (stakeholder) are unable to find a cure, then it would seem that we have a problem. The problem is that the owners of workplaces do not want to be paying large amounts of money to persons who, as far as they can see still have two arms and two legs and do a lot of complaining. It would be far more profitable to pay out a finite sum of money to someone (stakeholder) who can show that the person making the claim is doing this for pecuniary reasons. It is apparent to me that the outcomes of many of the medical examinations that I have been subjected to, were determined well before I entered the room.

A quote from author Ruth Pearson
Gender perspectives on health and safety in information processing
“The reported decline in notified RSI diagnosis in Australia was not the result of a reduction in the incidence of the symptoms of the condition. It was directly related to changes in the compensation procedure, rehabilitation programmes and medical and legal delegitimation of the condition (Meekosha and Jakubowicz, 1991). In many states the system was modified to reduce statutory employer liability and to introduce mandatory rehabilitation programmes. Instead of institutionalizing employer liability, the state has joined forces with those seeking to devalidate claimants' cases by arguing that the condition is psychological in origin. As the medical controversies rage on, workers who have participated in mandatory rehabilitation programmes report a lack of professional support and the exacerbation of their condition by intensive testing procedures. The rehabilitation therapy, officially designed to assist sufferers in regaining fitness to work, has been transformed into an official routine to deny people's perception of their own pain and mobility:
A major issue for interviewees is the pain involved during and after the key test.... Many expressed shock at receiving an assessment that they were fit for work when they had felt sure that the pain they had reported during the test would have indicated that they were not fully recovered.
(ACT RSI Support Group, 1991: pp. 4-5)”
I believe that the because the system can not afford to pay out persons afflicted with this mysterious condition (RSI, WRULD, CTD, OOS, TOS etc) the condition will not receive the legitimacy required to ensure that a cure will be found. Just imagine if diabetes, asthma, cancer were not recognised as being bona fide conditions, how little we would know of these conditions. It is because the validity of the condition (RSI, WRULD, CTD, OOS, TOS etc) is often debated in the work injury law courts with the might of the system (with the support of many stakeholders) against a singular person who may be struggling to survive on a day to day basis.

It is because the system allows this imbalance that affected persons spend too much of their time fighting for support rather than rehabilitating.

I believe we need to be more organised and contact other associations around the world who are facing the same dilemma. As you can see in the preceding quote there is an RSI group in ACT (Australian Capital Territory, where the Australian federal capital city is situated).

By the way I believe that RSI, WRULD, CTD, OOS, TOS etc are all the same condition, the mechanism of which is neural compromise of a little nerve less than 1/8 of an inch in diameter that runs under the shoulder blade. This compromise causes postural changes, pain in the area between one’s neck and shoulder, heavy arm, muscle spasms in the upper back, changes to breathing patterns (chest breathing) and muscle imbalances that cause compromise to the nerves that run under the pec. minor muscle and down one’s arm.
Regards towelhorse