A number of 500 employees are annually hurt at the workplace in Moldova, with 40 of them dying. The data were presented by the National Confederation of Trade Unions of Moldova in an event staged on the occasion of World Day for Safety and Health at Work, IPN reports, quoting a communique of the Confederation.

The Confederation’s chairman Oleg Budza said the professional disease indexes are rather insignificant and decrease annually. In 2012 there were recorded 12 cases of professional diseases, while in 2014 there were recorded no such cases.

Budza said yet that the professional diseases are lower in number not because the working conditions are good, but because the diagnosis systems are outdated. “We are convinced that this phenomenon expands in our country owing to the insufficient financing for outfitting the sanitary laboratories with modern equipment,” he stated.

He also said that owing to the old state social insurance system, inherited from the last century, the employers are not economically motivated and are not obliged by the Government to ensure decent working conditions, the health and bodily integrity of those who manufacture goods.