DriverHealth

HIV/AIDS Tests The prick to draw blood; the test to determine status; the joy of being HIV negative.

You could see he was scared. Wouldn’t you be if you had just stepped from your truck cab to have various people conduct a number of medical tests on you and then found yourself being rushed off in the back of an ambulance to a clinic to be put on a drip for two hours?

This is what happened to one of the truck drivers at the N3TC initiated Mooi River Driver Wellness Day held in May this year. The driver’s sugar reading was so high that he needed immediate medical attention to bring it back into the safe zone. And yet he had been driving a truck along the N3. He shouldn’t have been behind the wheel of a trolly, let alone a truck! And there were three others that day who were also put onto drips to bring their sugar levels down.

Top Guys The N3TC men behind the Driver Wellness Day initiative: Con Roux, commercial manager (left) and Praveen Sunderlall, regional incident manager for KZN. Hats off to you guys.

The problem is, they didn’t know of their dangerous medical condition. Their companies did not have in place any driver health policy or programme for their drivers apart from the compulsory medical test that goes with a PrDP application. And, as many admit, there is huge doubt around the validity of many of these PrDP medicals.

This came out once again at the second Driver Wellness Day initiated by the N3TC in October at the Bergville Road Side Court on the N3. Like at Mooi River, the Kwa- Zulu Natal Department of Health once again gave its full support to the project as did the Road Traffic Inspectorate, the SAPS and the Department of Transport - Road Safety.

Also on board were Sharaj EMS, Specsavers, Hollard Insurance, Regent, Zurich, FAU, Wheels, Shayela Approved, Tolcon, N3TC Route Services, Kevin Pickard Projects and, as always, those dedicated folk from the Road Safety Foundation.

The services offered to the drivers, at both Mooi River and Bergville were blood pressure screening, blood sugar screening (diabetes), TB screening, audio/hearing tests, eye testing, HIV/AIDS testing and counseling, nutrition (Body Mass Index), physiotherapy and occupational therapy.

Willing drivers Initially truck drivers were pulled off the highway by the cops for testing. The word soon spread along the highway grapevine and grateful drivers were stopping voluntarily to have their heath checked.

Due to lack of space, I highlight just two of the screening results so as to drive home the points being made. We will revisit this subject next year after the results of the third Driver Wellness Day - which is being held at the end of November - come to hand. In the meantime, there is enough evidence using just two health inputs to catalyse action.

Hearing Tests These tests revealed flaws in the hearing of many drivers with a number referred to an audiologist for further testing

Chronic hypertension

From the blood pressure tests, out of 295 patients tested at Bergville, it was found that 35.25% of the drivers were chronically hypertensive with highly elevated blood pressures.

According to Philip Hull of the Road Safety Foundation and founder of Community Medical Service, the parameters used by the medical team doing the testing was that any systolic pressure over 140 and diastolic pressure above 110 were considered as hypertensive.

“Arguably, the diastolic pressure parameter could have been lower at around the 95 mark - which is a parameter we would have considered - and obviously that would have increased the hypertensive results accordingly. In previous research in the trucking industry, our percentage occurrence of hypertension has ranged between 63% and 71% of drivers tested,” he says.

He adds, however, that irrespective of which parameters are used, there is still a strong indication that chronic hypertension is prevalent among our truck driving fraternity caused predominately by lifestyle, eating habits and lack of exercise.

BLOOD PRESSURE At Bergville, 35,25% of the drivers were chronically hypertensive with highly elevated blood pressures. The insert result shows the blood pressure of a driver tested at Mooi River. It’s at a very dangerous level.

Chronically overweight

From the nutrition investigations, it was found that 31,2% of the drivers screened were chronically overweight with a Body Mass Index (BMI) in excess of 30. A further 34.4% were overweight with a BMI of between 26 and 30.

“Over 65% of those drivers tested are therefore considered overweight or obese. That, combined with their vocational lifestyle, would in most cases lead into more serious conditions such as cardiac and renal impairment, diabetes and other factors,” says Hull.

“From the results of just these two inputs, I am shocked at the potential danger these trucks drivers pose to themselves and other road users. It is an issue that needs urgent and high level attention.”

And his concern is not unfounded given that based on findings from investigations into incidents that have taken place along the route, the N3TC has concluded that one of the major contributing factors to accidents is truck driver fitness.

It is, in fact, because of this that the N3TC’s Regional Incident Manager for KwaZulu-Natal, Praveen Sunderlall started this initiative. Over many years of personal experience, he simply saw too many unexplained incidents where a medical condition may well have been the initial cause.

For many years FleetWatch has been pressing home the point that the health of South Africa’s truck drivers receives nowhere near the attention it should. Yes, the industry can stand tall and proud in terms of its effort to contain the spread of HIV/AIDS through the Truck Wellness Programme, but there is more to be done.

As Con Roux, commercial manager of the N3TC says: “All trucking operators need to understand the critical importance of driver wellness and to take positive steps in their own best interests to ensure that their drivers are fit to drive.”

Hypertension is a silent killer. So too is diabetes if left undiagnosed. The proof is there. Operators now need to act.

Full Support The insurance industry was there under the prompting of Basil Mann (left) MD of Shayela Approved (driver training) and Derek Landau, technical underwriting manager, Regent Commercial Vehicles and chairman of the Insurance Trucking Committee (second from right). With them are John Towsey, CEO of Wheels Insurers, Wayne Rautenbach, national manager, Regent Commercial Vehicles and Ian Smith, national marketing manager, Wheels Insurers.