Category: health

Rolling the sleeves up – a good OHS technique.

My father has a smallish block up in the bush, north-east Victoria in the Ovens Valley.  He can’t live there safely anymore, but since he built the place himself and with all the family history it has, it’s a place that has to be retained, and protected from bushfire as much as we reasonably can manage.

My partner and I, plus Dah (and a coupla friends) spent a few weeks there around Christmas and New Year doing lots of scrub clearing, garden things and general tidying up in readiness for the predicted return to hot dry summers after that naughty La Nina begins to fade.   These sort of work trips have been going on over quite a few summers.

The big range of jobs on these tidying-up trips range from trimming large branches, working up on roofs, scrub clearing, lots of load shifting, burn-offs, using lots of different powered equipment (chainsaw, scrub-cutters) and dragging out cut scrub with the ute etc etc.

Doing this work has me often giving lots of thought to doing the job efficiently and safely, and observing my own safety stuff-ups.  It gives me a chance to reflect on the safety system stuff we spend lots of time lecturing punters on and how practical it all is when there is limited time to get the job done, it’s 30 degrees Celsius, and the humidity is at a zillion; in other words, in work conditions lots of people have to deal with all the time. Continue reading “Rolling the sleeves up – a good OHS technique.”

Volume controls should show decibel levels

Six months ago Pamela Cowan wrote about iPods and policies.  Whilst driving this afternoon I turned down the volume on my car radio (Question Time in Parliament) and I wondered how much I had reduced the volume.  I could not tell as the radio simply has a scale of numbers.

Such a measurement is common.  We have heard of “cranking the amp up to eleven” but what does eleven mean in terms of decibels and, in the context of this blog, the risk of noise-induced hearing loss?

This is also particularly relevant in the discussion about earphones.  The safety warnings that relate to the potential long term damage are all expressed in exposures in decibels.  Yet the volume controls are shown as numbers, lines or a digital bar.  There is no mention of decibels.

Continue reading “Volume controls should show decibel levels”

New books – South African nursing and a Canadian perspective

This week two new OHS books came across my desk unbidden.  Both are very good but have very different contexts and both were published by Baywood Publishing Company Inc.

“Who Is Nursing Them? It is Us.” “Neoliberalism, HIV/AIDS, and the Occupational Health and Safety of South African Public Sector Nurses” by Jennifer R Zelnick

Northern Exposure – A Canadian Perspective on Occupational Health and Environment by David Bennett

South Africa is an exotic foreign land to me.  I am aware of the basic political issues of the country for the last 30 years but, in terms of OHS, I know there have been some major mining incidents and that HIV/AIDS is a major occupational and social challenge.  Zelnick’s book illustrates clearly the difficulty of tackling a workplace risk that is also a hot, contentious public health and political issue. Continue reading “New books – South African nursing and a Canadian perspective”

Laboratory safety begins with design

Laboratory safety is often treated as a specialist area of occupational safety due to the potential harm from the material being handled but also because the laboratories often exist in universities, isolated work environments in many ways.  Kansas State University (KSU) is obviously very proud of its Biosecurity Research Institute that, it claims, has considered all elements of safety in all stages of construction and operation.

A researcher works with materials in a biosafety cabinet in the Biosecurity Research Institute at Kansas State University. A biosafety cabinet is a safety enclosure that uses HEPA filters and directional airflow to contain pathogens.

The article that KSU has released on line is a little promotional in tone but there is enough information in it to illustrate the high level of planning that was given to the project.  There may not be much new information for those already involved in laboratory safety but it is a useful example of the need for preparatory work in establishing a safe working environment that also ensures product integrity.

Kevin Jones

Is politics anti-family?

Another Australian politician has resigned to spend more time with his family but this time the family mantra is not tacked on to a struggling career in order to add moral weight to the political decision sadly many examples of dubious resignations are available.  Most commentators believe that the Tasmanian Premier, David Bartlett’s decision is a genuine desire to spend more time with his young family.

Premier David Bartlett talking to workers at the McKay Timbers.

Most of the media coverage relates to the political context of Bartlett’s decision but the circumstances for the decision are not unique as some previous SafetyAtWorkBlog articles show.  Political careers can lead to suicide attempts, depression and mental breakdown.  Certainly this occurs in other professions but at some point the structure of the occupation needs reviewing if a work/life balance is to be achieved.

Politics has always been a time vampire that has required the welfare and development of children to be given a lower priority than public service.  Continue reading “Is politics anti-family?”

Looking at the root causes of workplace violence

Workplace incidents and injuries often occur as a result of inadequate resourcing in staff and time but few OHS consultants are comfortable recommending to clients that additional staff are required or that shifts should be reconfigured or, possibly, that a certain business activity (or the business itself) should be cancelled.  Yet identifying the “root cause” and eliminating the hazard is the aim of the safety profession and, sometimes, a legislative obligation.

A blog article from the National Institute of Occupational Safety & Health in the United States illustrates many of these issues.  In a post entitled “Assaults on Nursing Assistants” unacceptable levels of assault and biting were experienced by aged-care nurses in one survey sample. But the blog not only reported the research results, it recommended some control measures:

“Improving staffing levels may reduce the risk of assault by reducing workload demands and allowing staff more time to spend with each resident and avoiding the need to rush care.” (emphasis added)

These seem sensible control measures in this work situation but will any business really take the recommended actions based solely on safety concerns? Continue reading “Looking at the root causes of workplace violence”

CSR and public health

The recent conference of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) gave considerable attention to corporate social responsibility (CSR).  It could be argued that this shows the ASSE is years behind many others but it could also be argued that CSR has a practical longevity in workplace safety that may have faded in other CSR areas.

A recent article in Health Education, “Workplace health promotion within small and medium-sized enterprises” may provide some clues for forward planning on mental health, wellbeing and OHS.  The authors* write:

“There needs to be a clear distinction between activities focused purely on internal business management and those with a wider public health impact.  Consideration needs to be given to human resource policies and procedures, as these are beyond employees’ personal control, yet have a direct and indirect effect on their working life and the smooth running of the business they work for.”

This should give greater confidence to HR practitioners that the “soft sciences” of human resources are an important element of corporate wellbeing and profitability but there is also a clear indication from the article that various organisational elements need to “play well” with each other in order to achieve the potential benefits; Continue reading “CSR and public health”

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