According to Carsat Midi-Pyrénées, accidents at work and occupational diseases are decreasing

The annual inventory drawn up by the Midi-Pyrénées pension and occupational disease fund (Carsat) is encouraging: accidents at work decreased by 5.1% in 2021 compared to 2019 and occupational diseases by 11.7%. As regards accidents that occurred while travelling, they decreased by 12.5%. Only serious occupational diseases increased by 5.7%.

“There is a drop in claims while there has been an increase in employed persons (Editor’s note of 3.5% in 1 year)”, analyzes Joëlle Traniello, director of Carsat Midi-Pyrénées. Even if the resumption of post-Covid activity has generated the use of precarious workers, more exposed to accidents.

More than 27,000 workplace accidents in the region

Last year, Carsat carried out 9,000 interventions in 113,298 companies in Midi-Pyrénées, involving 874,518 employees. 27,353 accidents at work, 1,353 occupational diseases and 45 deaths were recorded (compared to 53 in 2019). It should be noted that 44% of injuries are due to manual handling and 22% to falls on the same plane.

Guy Hourriez, Carsat regional consultant engineer, recalls the disparity between the departments: “For example, the Tarn-et-Garonne has 50 victims of occupational accidents against 32 in the Haute-Garonne. This can be explained by the industrial fabric and the size of the companies in the sector. The bigger a company is, the more structured it is. And in Haute-Garonne there are many offices”.

Areas that need improvement

As far as accidents are concerned, the worst are medical and social work, temporary work, road haulage (knowing that 95% of accidents happen when stationary!) and construction. Guy Hourriez explains: “Construction is the sector that has improved the most”, going from 120 victims out of 1,000 employees ten years ago to 69 today.

Since musculoskeletal disorders represent 83% of occupational diseases, prevention continues in 200 target companies, through the training of relay teams. And among the actions to be carried out this year, Carsat is launching a special program to investigate diseases, the cause of 58% of deaths.