Farm Safety Week highlights need for cultural change

Today (Monday) marks the start of the eighth annual Farm Safety Week. The campaign aims to reduce the number of accidents on farms and bring about a change in culture that makes unsafe practices socially unacceptable. The message for this year’s campaign is: It’s time to take safety seriously.
Farm Safety Week (FSW) is supported by several agencies, including the Health and Safety Authority
(HSA) and members of the Farm Safety Partnership Advisory Committee.
To coincide with this years FSW, a research paper entitled, Trauma on Farms in the Republic of
Ireland, written by Dr Michael Sheehan, Dr Conor Deasy and Louise Brent was published.
The paper was a study of the data collected as part of the Major Trauma Audit at the National Office of
Clinical Audit. The paper, which examines the period 2014-2016, is the first significant study
concerning this topic in Ireland.
Key findings include:
 In the years 2014 through 2016, 430 patients met the Trauma Audit and Research Network
(TARN) and Major Trauma Audit (MTA) inclusion criteria where the incident location was a farm.
 The median age of patients was 54.5 years; the patients ranged in age from less than one year old
to 93 years of age.
 Falls of less than two meters (low falls) caused a quarter of major trauma in those under 65 years
of age, and low falls make up almost one-third of patients over 65 years old.
 33% of paediatric patients presented as a result of a 'blow', 26% due to a vehicle incident and 19%
as a result of a fall less than two metres.
 Peaks of attendances occurred at busy times of the year for farmers, in March and July.
 Most patients arrived on a Monday (16.3%).
 Farm trauma patients were more likely to arrive by helicopter (6%) than other MTA patients
 Current data indicate that dairy farming is the most dangerous type of farming in the Republic of
Ireland.