산재법상 산재후유장애에 대한 업무상 판단과 대책

Abstract

Workers’ compensation act is social insurance that provides cash benefits and(or) medical care for workers who are injured or become ill as a direct result of their job. The problem occurs when physical trauma produce mental injury to injured workers. In other words the problem is if Workers’ compensation law protects injured workers suffering from PTSD from stress or mental pressure after curing their injury. It is difficult for judge the occupational nature of PTSD as the PTSD happens to injured workers out of the multi cause regardless of age after industrial accidents, after a lapse of long period from industrial accidents. The other problem is how the PTSD is judged. The Korean workers’ compensation law have the rule of additional injury and disease compensation pension, compensation for re-medical treatment and general causation between diseases and work for protecting the injured workers. The inferior court intends to solve the work connected of PTSD by applying the rule of additional injury and disease compensation pension. This application of the rule to PTSD is wrong because when PTSD happens to the workers who saw colleague injured. this rule is no more applied. Therefore, PTSD could be protected according to the judgement of work related disease based on the general rule that prescribes the proximate causal relation between disease and work. In America, PTSD of the worker is divided into three forms that are cases in which observable physical trauma causes mental injury, cases in which mental stress or stimulus causes observable physical trauma and cases in which mental stress or stimulus so-called purely mental injuries, that is, injuries unaccompanied by any observable or apparent physical trauma according to the cause of PTSD, PTSD of the injured worker is protected by workers’ compensation system, if PTSD happens out of physical trauma decided as the work related injury. Above all, we try to prevent the PTSD from the physical trauma. The best method is to consider and educate the injured workers for prevention of PTSD.