In Bulawayo, next to Mpilo Central Hospital, there is a rehabilitation centre staffed by a multidisciplinary team of medical professionals dedicated to rehabilitating those who have been seriously disabled in a workplace accident.
The Workers’ Compensation Rehabilitation Centre, which is run by the National Social Security Authority (NSSA), is funded by the Worker’s Compensation Insurance Fund (WCIF), to which employers pay a premium each month in respect of each of their employees.
It caters for injured workers insured under the WCIF scheme who are referred to it because the disability resulting from a workplace accident has rendered them incapable of performing their work or made it difficult for them to do so without first undergoing a rehabilitation programme.
Its goal is to reduce their disability so that they are able to return to their work, wherever possible, or learn new skills that could be employed in a new job or enable them to be self-employed.
The centre aims to help them function as independently as possible.
The multidisciplinary team at the centre includes physiotherapists, occupational therapists, rehabilitation technicians, a doctor, nurses, a social worker, vocational training officers and administrative and support staff.
The aims of the rehabilitation team are to enhance and restore the functional ability and quality of life of those with physical impairments and disabilities resulting from work-related injuries.
The focus of the team is on the ability of a person to function optimally within the limitations placed upon him or her by whatever disabling impairments they may have.
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The common conditions that are treated at the rehabilitation centre include physical injuries, spinal cord injuries, amputation, musculosketal pain syndromes such as low back pain, and traumatic brain injury.
Emphasis is placed on adapting the environment, modifying the task, teaching skills and educating the client or family in order to increase participation in and performance of daily activities, particularly those that are meaningful to the client.
Severely injured workers, including those whose disability is too severe for them to be able to resume work of any kind, are trained on how to live with their disability and fit into society without too many problems.
Constant attendants are trained by the centre to look after at home those who need somebody to look after them all or most of the time.
Preferably, the person trained as a constant attendant will be the disabled person’s wife or husband or brother or sister or someone else who will be looking after the disabled worker at home. These attendants are paid a monthly allowance by NSSA, even if an attendant is a close relative.
Treatment for psychological distress as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder is also given through continuous counselling during rehabilitation. Work conditioning and hardening are approaches used to restore performance skills needed on the job.
A member of the rehabilitation team may visit the workplace of a person whose rehabilitation enables him or her to return to work in order to do an on-site evaluation and see whether any ergonomic adjustments can be made to enable the injured worker to cope and readjust back into the workplace with his new condition or state.
The centre offers rehabilitation services to disabled and injured workers from all over the country.
It offers vocational training programmes for disabled workers who are being paid disability pensions by the WCIF.
Most of these disable pensioners would have lost limbs or be wheelchair bound. Their chances of competing on the job market would have been rendered minimal. The centre endeavours, therefore, to teach them new skills that may enable them to engage in some form of self-employment.
The vocational training programmes or courses offered at the centre are welding, carpentry, tailoring, leatherwork, poultry, gardening and business planning and management. All the training courses run for six months, apart from poultry and gardening, which run for three months.
They are all full time courses. NSSA meets all the costs of the disabled pensioner’s stay at the centre. This includes the cost of moving the pensioners to and from various regions to the centre.
The thrust of the vocational training is to equip the disabled person with new skills, so that he or she is enabled to be self-sustaining by engaging in self-help projects. NSSA provides financial and technical support during and after the pensioner’s vocational training.
Project planning and management training does not begin and end at the rehabilitation centre. It goes beyond the pensioner’s stay at the centre.
A professional social worker makes follow-up visits to the pensioner to ensure success in all phases of the project cycle. This is particularly true of those disabled pensioners who are living in rural areas.
The vocational training undertaken at the centre is designed to demonstrate and improve the working qualities of those who undergo it. It emphasises their abilities and working capacities and not their disabilities.
The rehabilitation centre’s thrust is to help those disabled as a result of a work-related accident to accept their condition and maximise their potential for either continued work in the same job, or for the same organisation, or for engaging in a new type of work or in self-employment by undergoing vocational skills training at the centre.
Members of the multi-disciplinary team of professionals at the centre work together to achieve this objective.
Talking Social Security is published weekly by the National Social Security Authority as a public service.
There is also a weekly radio programme, PaMhepo neNssa/Emoyeni le NSSA, discussing social security issues at 6.50 pm every Thursday on Radio Zimbabwe and every Friday on National FM. There is another social security programme on Star FM on Wednesdays between 5.50 pm and 6 pm.
Readers can e mail issues they would like dealt with in this column to [email protected] or text them to 0772 307913. Those with individual queries should contact their local NSSA office or telephone NSSA on (04) 706517-8 or 706523 5.
