Study of Health Complaints of the Female Workers in Fish Processing Industries of Odisha

Odisha occupies 480 km of seacoast in eastern part of India where fish processing industries have been established. About 60,000 people depend upon the fish processing industries where they use small sharp knife and their fingers come in contact with different sharp body parts of fishes. Different activities like peeling, head and tail separation, grading are mostly done by female workers. They mostly work in squatting posture which is tedious and drudgerious. A participatory survey work was conducted for 107 no of female workers in two fishing industries with age in the range of 18 - 50 years. The main problems reported to be blanching of fingers (83%), pain in joints (81%), hand injury (86%), hand numbness (85%), head ache (43%), eye irritation (29%), and respiratory irritation (42%) in most of the subjects. The body parts feeling discomfort are reported to be knee (92%), shoulder (77%), lower back (78%), neck (90%) etc. Generally injuries in thumb, pointer and middle finger are more and infections take in the gap between fingers due to salty water and chemicals. Protective measures like eye goggles, apron, hand gloves, shoes, and use of sitting platform can reduce the musculoskeletal disorder and fatigue during the work.