Employees' Social Security Act 1969 · Updated to 1 Oct 2024 · Part III · Benefits
28. Occupational diseases
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A disease the Fifth Schedule links to a worker's job counts as a work injury unless proven otherwise. The same applies within sixty months after leaving that job. The organisation may extend the sixty months on medical and other evidence. The minister may change that schedule. Other diseases earn benefit only if a specific work injury directly caused them.
Summary · Drafted with AI, checked against the official text on 30 Sep 2026.
If an employee who is employed in any occupation described in the Fifth Schedule contracts any disease or injury shown in the said
Schedule to be related to that occupation, or if an employee who has been employed in such occupation contracts such a disease or injury within sixty months after ceasing to be so employed, the contracting of the disease or injury shall, unless the contrary is proved, be deemed to be an employment injury arising out of and in the course of employment:
Provided that the period of sixty months may, at the discretion of the
Organization, be further extended upon production of medical and other relevant evidence in support of it.
Where an employee enters into a contract of service or apprenticeship with any principal employer or immediate employer to work in any occupation specified in the Fifth Schedule or is, with his consent, transferred by his principal or immediate employer to such an
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occupation, he shall, if requested to do so by the employer or the
Organization, submit himself for examination by a duly appointed medical practitioner; but such an employee shall not be required to submit himself for examination by a duly appointed medical practitioner otherwise than in accordance with regulations made under this Act nor at shorter intervals than may be prescribed therein.
The Minister may, by notification in the Gazette, amend, substitute, add or delete any disease specified in the Fifth Schedule and any occupation described therein.
Save as provided by subsections (1) and (3), no benefit shall be payable to an employee in respect of any disease unless the disease is directly attributable to a specific injury arising out of and in the course of his employment.
Section 23 shall not apply to the cases to which this section applies.