MORE than 250 Bendigo construction workers have lodged compensation claims for serious workplace injuries in the past five years, resulting in $12 million worth of pay-outs, according to WorkSafe statistics.
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The figures released today show one construction worker has been injured in Bendigo every week, on average, since 2008.
WorkSafe Inspector for the Bendigo region Peter Sullivan said each injury ended up costing about $52,000 for treatment, wages and other expenses.
Mr Sullivan said there were more than 130 health and safety breaches found at local construction sites each year.
He said these were largely due to “poor planning and poor site housekeeping”.
In a new WorkSafe campaign, the government body is looking to crack down on the rate of injuries occurring in the construction industry.
Mr Sullivan said the $12 million compensation bill from injured Bendigo workers was too high.
“We’d like to reduce the injury rate and reduce the severity of the injuries,” he said.
“They may not always be life-threatening but they are often painful, long lasting and result in long periods off work.”
Mr Sullivan said a growing number of construction projects across the region highlighted the need to discuss safety practises.
“If you look at the jobs coming up – the new Bendigo hospital, the art gallery – work is going to increase in this area. We want to work with employers to talk more about safety with the whole of the workplace.”
According to WorkSafe statistics an average of five injuries on construction sites are reported each day, across the state.
Mr Sullivan said a lot of the injuries could be avoided by safer work conditions.
“It all boils down to general planning. It gets around a lot of the problems. It’s when they don’t plan that problems occur. When things are tough people start to take shortcuts.”
In its new campaign targeted at the construction industry, WorkSafe has released a “Top Tradie Cup” smartphone App, in a bid to get workers to talk about safety.
WorkSafe chief executive Denise Cosgrove said the number of incidents showed a greater need for awareness of safety.
She said the app would test tradies on their safety knowledge as well as football trivia, for the chance to win prizes.
“We know that creating a safety culture encourages behaviour change which will ultimately lead to fewer workers being injured on site,” she said.
More information on the WorkSafe campaign can be found at www.toptradie.com.au
