risk – Page 181 – SafetyAtWorkBlog

Health Department bans all employees from smoking at work

Most of the Australian media have reported on a memo to staff of the Australian Department of Health that only allows smoking while on meal breaks. Health Department employees are not permitted to smoke while undertaking departmental duties or “when representing the department in any capacity”.

Government authorities have long participated in smoking reduction campaigns which have succeeded in minimising smoking. Workplaces in Australia already have workplace smoking bans. So what’s caused the memo (a copy which has not been seen by SafetyAtWorkBlog) to be issued?

The principal reason seems to be to improve the “professional reputation of the department”. It has always been a ridiculous image to see Health Department employees crowding around departmental doorways smoking cigarettes. Continue reading “Health Department bans all employees from smoking at work”

PPE can be a lazy OHS solution

One of the occupations with the clearest need for personal protective equipment (PPE) is that of a firefighter. There are few other industries where PPE has such a high priority in workplace safety but sometimes PPE can still be forgotten.

A report on ABC radio and online in Australia on 11 January 2010 shows that even in firefighting PPE may be forgotten. The firefighter was the first one to take a fire hose to a shop fire and did not have on any breathing apparatus (BA). His fully suited colleagues caught up with him and began fighting the fire. It appears from this one media report that the firefighter kept his attention on fighting the fire rather than taking a break and putting on his BA. Shortly after he began feeling unwell.

Research

On 4 January 2010 the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (AFAC) released a firefighting information package, based on an early September 2009 workshop, that includes some interesting information about firefighter health and safety. Continue reading “PPE can be a lazy OHS solution”

Sandman lecture online

In November 2009, Peter Sandman delivered the Berreth Lecture at the annual conference of the National Public Health Information Coalition (NPHIC). Significantly Sandman was asked not to present on risk communication but about his experiences in risk communication and how he came to prominence in the field.

The NPHIC has made the 65-minute video of his lecture available on-line. Sandman has the audio available through his website. The speech notes are also available but, as is his wont, Sandman diverges from the “script” frequently.

Continue reading “Sandman lecture online”

Tasmanian mine safety review

Safety in mines in Tasmania has received great attention in the aftermath of Larry Knight’s death at Beaconsfield gold mine. On 13 December 2009, the Tasmanian Workplace Relations Minister, Lisa Singh released a regulatory impact statement and information paper on proposed amendments to the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995.

This legislative package, according to the Minister’s media release:

“The proposed package considerably expands upon existing legislation, by including both general duties and hazard specific regulations for the mining industry.

“A key focus is the requirement for each mine to implement a health and safety management system, which must include risk management processes and procedures.”

Any OHS review should be welcomed but what is this trend of short periods of public comment? There were many complaints of the Federal Government for short periods of review on national model OHS laws and now the Tasmanian Government wants responses by 14 January 2010!!??

Just one month for responses and that month includes Christmas holidays and New Year. This brings the consultation period to around 19 working days.

A spokesperson for Workplace Standards Tasmania (WST) said that the various reviews and coronial reports over recent years have put pressure on the Government to improve mine safety legislation. She also said that comments on the Regulatory Impact Statement is an important and necessary step in drafting the relevant legislation.

The spokesperson said that WST is effectively closed down between Christmas and New Year but has an emergency response. Any enquiries from the public about the RIS will be handled by the WST Helpline on other working days untill relevant staff return. The Helpline is being briefed on the RIS this week.

WST emphasised that the consultation on the legislative amendments has been occurring for months. SafetyAtWorkBlog acknowledges this is the case but the Public Comment period is very tight.

The Minister, Lisa Singh, has said in her media release that

“I encourage comment from persons connected with the mining industry, including workers, mine operators and contractors.”

SafetyAtWorkBlog contacted the Minister’s Office and a spokesperson said that the timing of the Public Comment period is unfortunate but that the Government does not want to delay the process any longer than it has too. She advised that the minimum time period for comments on an RIS is three weeks and that the comment window on this particular process is four weeks.

There is no accusation of a conspiracy here but the unfortunate scheduling highlights a legitimate conflict between the aims of an effective public comment phase and legislative development that seems endemic through Australian politics.

Kevin Jones

The future of the School of Risk & Safety Science

It was good to hear the President of the Safety Institute of Australia (SIA), Barry Silburn on the radio on 7 December 2009. The SIA has traditionally been very hesitant about going public on safety issues but clearly the potential disappearance of the School of Risk & Safety Science from the University of New South Wales is important to the SIA.

The closure of this school seems absurd, particularly, when the fact of its profitability is shown.

The university’s decision appears wrong and, from the evidence of the radio interview, it seems that the decision has occurred recently. Dropping a school, regardless of the prominence claimed by the SIA, which has a problem with prominence of its own, is a harsh decision if there has not already been a consultative process or a strategic program for improvement and increased relevance.

It is not as if the school does not have access to top talent. Names familiar to Australian OHS professionals, researchers and regulators include

Professor Chris Winder

Dr Anne Wyatt

Dr Jean Cross

Michael Tooma

In the University of New South Wales’ Australian School of Business, there are several other prominent OHS academics. Most familiar to SafetyAtWorkBlog are

Professor Michael Quinlan

Professor Stephen Frenkel

Barry Silburn (a video of Barry Silburn talking about the SIA is available online) accuses the University of New South Wales of sacrificing the safety profession for short-term gain:

“They’re not looking at the overall picture of OHS within Australia they’re looking at very short-term money considerations on their courses that they’re conducting within the university”.

This seems an odd accusation when compared with the fact that the school has made a profit two years running.

It seems to SafetyAtWorkBlog that the limitations of the University’s review are clear in the statement of Deputy Vice Chancellor, Richard Henry:

We had an external review of the Faculty of Science by a committee of internationally respected scientists and their recommendations to the university were that the Faculty of Science should concentrate on its strengths; areas such as maths, physics, chemistry, psychology, biology.

The university wants to focus on pure science rather than applied science after a review undertaken by “a committee of internationally respected scientists”. HMMMM?

OHS academics are often less dependent on government funding than other schools and departments because the skills and knowledge can be more readily applied in a practical way and they live closer to the economic realities of business and workplace safety.

Silburn’s accusations of greed are too narrow. The safety profession can continue without the School of Risk & Safety Science. There are many sources of OHS graduates still in Australia and, from the activity of the University of Queensland, these opportunities are increasing.

It seems that the university may have been too narrow in its selection of the review panel for the Faculty of Science. But if we take the panel’s recommendations seriously, Richard Henry does not see the School of Risk & Safety Sciences as fitting in the Faculty of Science. Surely it could fit in the university’s School of Organisation and Management. Going from this School’s profile in the website:

“The School of Organisation and Management is a multi-disciplinary unit comprising 32 full-time academics. Our mission in the School of Organisation and Management (O&M) is to conduct high quality applied research and to prepare students for employment in diverse organisational settings. Our main areas of research and teaching include: Organisational Behaviour, International Business, Human Resource Management, Industrial Relations, and social and psychological aspects of Management.”

Anne Wyatt researches the psychosocial issue of workplace bullying. Chris Winder researches occupational toxicology and his most recent academic paper is “Managing hazards in the workplace using organisational safety management systems: A safe place, safe person, safe systems approach.”

If the University of New South Wales cannot see the continuing relevance of its profitable School of Risk & Safety Science, it should perhaps get examined at its own School of Optometry and Vision Science.

Kevin Jones

The School of Organisation and Management is a multi-disciplinary unit comprising 32 full-time academics. Our mission in the School of Organisation and Management (O&M) is to conduct high quality applied research and to prepare students for employment in diverse organisational settings. Our main areas of research and teaching include: Organisational Behaviour, International Business, Human Resource Management, Industrial Relations, and social and psychological aspects of Management.

New guidelines on aggression in health care

WorkSafe Western Australia and the other OHS regulators in Australia have produced a very good, and timely, guideline for the “Prevention and Management of Aggression in Health Services“.

The hazard has existed for many years and hospitals, in particular, are torn between the competing priorities of keeping their staff safe and maintaining contact with their clients. Glass screens and wire are effective barriers to violent attacks but it can be argued that such structures encourage aggression by implying that “violence happens here”.

The guidelines, or what the regulators call a “handbook for workplaces” (How does that fit in with the regulatory hierarchy for compliance?), provides good information on the integration of safe design into the health service premises. But as with most of the safe design principles, as is their nature, they need to be applied from initial planning of a facility and so, therefore, are not as relevant to fitting-out existing facilities. In health care, it often takes years or decades before upgrades are considered by the boards and safe design is still a new concept to most.

Another appealing element of the guide is that it does not only consider the high customer churn areas such as casualty or emergency. It is good to see the important but neglected issue of cash handling mentioned even in a small way.

Another positive is the handbook includes a bibliography. This is terrific for those who want to establish a detailed understanding of the issues and the current research. For the OHS regulators, it allows them to share the burden of authority. Just as in writing a blog, by referencing source material the reader understands the knowledge base for the opinions and the (blog) writer gains additional credibility by showing they have formed opinions and advice from the most current sources.

Having praised the bibliography, it is surprising that of all the Claire Mayhew publications and papers mentioned her CCH book “Guide to Managing OHS Risks in the Health Care Industry”, was omitted.

The regulators have often had difficulty determining whether checklists or assessment forms should be included in their guidances. In Victoria one example of the conflict was in the Manual Handling Code of Practice that included a short and long assessment checklist. Hardly anyone looked beyond the short version and many thought this undercut the effectiveness of the publication.

The fact is that safety management takes time and business want to spend as little time on safety as possible but still get the best results. Checklists are an audience favourite and contribute to more popular and widely read guidelines, and broad distribution of the safety message is a major aim.

Interestingly amongst the checklist in this health services aggression publication a staff survey has been included.

(At least) WorkSafe WA has listened to the frustrations of readers who download a PDF version but then have to muck about with, or retype, the checklists. This handbook is also available as an RTF file for use in word processing.

This is the first OHS publication that has come out from a government regulator with this combination of content, advice and forms. It is easy to see how this will be attractive to the intended health services sector.

Kevin Jones

Formaldehyde upgraded to human carcinogen

On 4 November 2009, the United States’ National Toxicology Program (NTP) upgraded formaldehyde to a “known human carcinogen”. This widely used chemical, principally in wood products, has been suspected of being carcinogenic for some time.

The suspicion was a major reason why, in Australia, Comcare issued a cautionary safety alert on using some shipping containers as converted accommodation. But the Comcare advice was based, and reasonably so, on a manufacturers’ material safety data sheet (MSDS).

One such MSDS selected at random from the Australian internet sites has this to say about formaldehyde:

Reported fatal dose for humans: 60-90 mL

Oral LD50 (rat): 800 mg/kg

Inhalation LC50 (rat): 590 mg/m3

Low concentrations of formaldehyde may cause sensitisation by skin contact. Formaldehyde vapour is irritant to mucous membranes and respiratory tract. Asthma like symptoms have occasionally been reported following inhalation.

Animal studies have shown formaldehyde to cause carcinogenic effects. In particular, chronic inhalation studies in rats have shown the development of nasal cavity carcinomas at 6 and 15 ppm. These cancers developed at concentrations which produced chronic tissues irritation and would not be voluntarily tolerated by humans. [IPCS Environmental Health Criteria 89, Formaldehyde, World Health Organisation [WHO], Geneva, 1989.]

Some positive mutagenic effects have been reported for formaldehyde. Available animal data do not show embryotoxic or teratogenic effects following exposure to formaldehyde.

The NTP notes that formaldehyde effects have now been identified as having a role in leukaemia and not just localised inhalation-related cancers.

The MSDS is dated 2004 and Australian OHS legislation only requires MSDS to be updated at five-yearly intervals. Of course they can be updated more frequently should the employer chose or, perhaps if the manufacturer advises them of a reclassification.

It is interesting that a 2004 MSDS still refers to WHO data that is fifteen years old and that the reference is to a non-Australian criterion. It is accepted that chemical reclassification and research are long processes but what should the updating timeline be now that the US has made this significant re-categorisation?

Perhaps the Australia classifications will gain speed given that the more compatible European re-categorisation of formaldehyde, and other chemicals, was announced overnight. The EU-OSHA website states

“Formaldehyde was confirmed as carcinogenic to humans. There is sufficient evidence in humans of an increased incidence of nasopharyngeal.”

However the human leukaemia issue was discusses in the evaluation summaries:

“The Working Group was almost evenly split on the evaluation of formaldehyde causing leukaemias in humans, with the majority viewing the evidence as sufficient for carcinogenicity and the minority viewing the evidence as limited. Particularly relevant to the discussions regarding sufficient evidence was a recent study accepted for publication which, for the first time, reported aneuploidy in blood of exposed workers characteristic of myeloid leukaemia and myelodysplastic syndromes with supporting information suggesting a decrease in the major circulating blood cell types and in circulating haematological precursor cells. The authors and Working Group felt this study needed to be replicated.”

Given that wood products that contain formaldehyde are used frequently in cabinet-making it is fair to expect MSDSs and OHS guidances on hazardous substances and wood dusts would be reissued and databases updated fairly quickly. Just as important is the fact that particle boards are commonly sold in hardware and timber outlets in Australia and that Spring and Summer is often the DIY peak.

It is not hard to picture an unscrupulous media outlet generating a panic about the presence of formaldehyde in these products regardless of how the chemical is bound or whether inhalation risks are minimised.

Kevin Jones

Category: risk

Health Department bans all employees from smoking at work

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PPE can be a lazy OHS solution

Research

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Sandman lecture online

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Tasmanian mine safety review

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The future of the School of Risk & Safety Science

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New guidelines on aggression in health care

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Formaldehyde upgraded to human carcinogen

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Research

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