26 workers faint in Cambodian factory

Cambodia: More than 20 workers fainted at Romantic Leather (Cambodia) Co. Ltd. in Sihanoukville Province. Yov Khemara, Director, Provincial Labour Department said, “There was a worker who fainted and then the other workers who saw her felt shock, fear and hysteria and then fainted continuously until there were 26 of them.”

The workers was sent to a private clinic for medical assistance. As per Yov, the first worker fainted because she was tired. She had been taking care of her sick husband at the hospital all night and had to come straight to work after having little sleep while the others were suffering from malnutrition. The doctors concluded that they lack glucose and calcium and that caused them to easily faint when they were shocked.

It may be mentioned here that last year, 1,160 workers fainted at factories across the country, as per the statistics released earlier in the current month by the National Social Security Fund.

The Cambodian Government has found seven reasons for these mass fainting after speaking to factory workers. The two most common reasons were related to their mental state (34 per cent) and nutrition (22 per cent). Long hours and physical injuries were also cited as reasons for mass faintings.