Social workers falling ill because of heavy workloads, survey finds
One in seven social workers handling domestic violence cases suffers problems such as high blood pressure, insomnia, heart disease and miscarriages due to work pressure, a survey has found. Two respondents had thought about committing suicide.
The social worker branch of the Hong Kong Chinese Civil Servants' Association polled 33 officers of the Social Welfare Department's Family and Child Protection Services Unit in February. It blamed the health problems uncovered by the survey on workload, as the unit's 156 staff members each handled 66 cases a year, compared with an annual average of 20 to 30 cases for social workers in the United States and Canada, and about 40 in Australia.
That does not include the dozens of reports they have to write every year and extra duties they take on to cover for colleagues who go on holiday.
The chairman of the social workers' union, Sam Leung Kin-hung, said many family tragedies took place when social workers were on leave.
'Colleagues not familiar with [particular] domestic violence cases are dragged in to replace those on leave,' he said.
The unit's staff spent an average of 48.5 days a year looking after the cases covered by colleagues and superiors on holiday. On one occasion, one official spent nearly three months covering the work of two others, the survey found.
Mr Leung said the department should hire more people and reorganise so each officer can specialise in one type of abuse case.
'The department's turnover rate was 1-2 per cent last year, but most who left were experienced. One female staff member gave up an annual income of over HK$700,000 to be a housewife because the pressure was so high.'
He said two respondents said they had thought about suicide. One had to seek psychological counselling.
Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung Kin-chung said the number of social workers handling abuse cases had risen from 123 in early 2005 to 156, and the department planned to hire 12 more in the coming year. He said the number of cases a social worker handled at one time had fallen to 45 in March from 49 a year ago, and would drop further to 44 this year.
But such figures did not reflect the real situation as many officers were forced to close cases prematurely.
