LAS TUNAS, July 25 (Juan Téllez, Agencia Libertad) - Agricultural worker Disney Cruz Velázquez, 34, working barefoot, stepped on a nail, but the authorities refused to treat the case as a job-related injury because he couldn’t produce a witness to the mishap.
Cruz works for the "Panchito Gómez Toro" irrigation company, specialists in Microjet irrigation methods. Specifically, they run inexpensive, perforated hoses around the bases of all plants in a field. The idea is to apply water directly to the roots of plants and thereby realize
a savings on water compared to other irrigation methods.
The problem is that the hoses, which must be left in place throughout the growing season, are stolen. The company then set a number of boards with nails sticking out of them as traps. It was on one of these nails that Cruz stepped, with the heel of his right foot.
"The doctor in the polyclinic gave him a certificate for seven days, but didn’t treat it as a work-related accident because the patient did not present a witness to what happened," said Roger Curbelo Marrero, another peasant.
Measures such as these skew the statistics of the Public Health Ministry on work-related accidents and save the company the need to pay the worker compensation.
Versión original en español
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