Occupational Health and Safety | Health and Safety

Occupational Health and Safety

Our discussion today we'll focus on the introduction to Occupation Health and Safety including important terminologies, the importance of Safety and Health, types of hazards in the workplace and cause of accidents and disease.

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to achieve the following objectives.

1. Recognize the type of Hazards and its examples.
2. Identify the direct and indirect cost of neglecting safety, and
3. Appreciate the importance of Health and Safety in daily life.

Important Terminologies of Occupational Health and Safety-

Safety is the protection from physical injury and mental the well-being of the individual.

Health refers to the protection of the body and mind of people from illness, resulting from the materials, processes or procedures used in the workplace.

Welfare is the provision of facilities to maintain the health and well-being of the individuals in the workplace.

Hazard is the way in which an object or a situation may cause harm the hazard exists where an object or substance or situation has a built-in ability to cause an adverse effect.

Exposure refers to the extent to which the likely recipient of the ham is exposed to or can be influenced by behavior.

Risk is the chance, that such effects will occur the risk can be high or negligible.

Occupational Health and Safety is a discipline with a broad scope involving many specialized firms in its broadest sense. It should aim at the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations. 

Prevention among workers of adverse effects on health caused by the working conditions. 

Protection of workers in employment from risks resulting from factors adverse to health. 

Placing in the maintenance of workers in an occupational environment adapted to physical and mental needs and adaptation of work to humans.

A successful occupational Health and Safety in an organization are depending on commitment and participation among employers and employees. It is one of the responsibilities of the employees under the Occupational Health and Safety Act1994 to care about the Health and Safety of workers when employed in any organization. This act regulated by the Department of Occupational Health and Safety under the Ministry of Human Resources.

Type of Hazards in the Workplace-

• Physical hazard-which is associated with energy such as noise, electricity, extreme temperature, radiation, and vibration.
• Chemical hazard-substance or chemical mixture that may be explosive, flammable, toxic and corrosive.
• Biological hazard-hazards due to an organism such as viruses, bacteria and protozoa.
• Psychological hazard-hazards related to psychosocial and social factors, for example, overwork, shift work and job stress.
• Ergonomic hazard- which refers to physical factors within the environment that harms the musculoskeletal system such as awkward posture, manual handling and repetitive movement. 

Unhealthy or unsafe working conditions due to those hazardous exposures can be found anywhere, whether the workplace is indoors or outdoors. poor working conditions can affect the environment where workers live in. this means workers and their families are the people in the society and the physical environment around the workplace can all of them be at risk from exposure to the workplace hazards.

How can that be let us have a look at this example, the use of pesticides in agricultural work workers can be exposed to toxic chemicals in a number of ways? When spraying pesticides they can inhale the chemicals during, and after spraying. Chemicals can be absorbed through the skin and the workers can ingest chemicals while they eat, drink or smoke if they are not washing their hands, or drinking water can become contaminated with the chemicals. The workers' families can also be exposed in a number of ways, they can inhale the pesticides which may remain in the air. They can drain contaminated water or they can be exposed to residues which may be on the worker's clothes.

Other people in the community can also be exposed in the same ways as well, when the chemicals get absorbed into the soil, or absorbed into the groundwater supplies.

The adverse effects on the natural environment can be permanent, these will result in occupational diseases.

Work-related incidents, accidents or diseases are very common and costly, and can have many serious direct and indirect effects on the lives of workers and their families, for the workers, some of the direct costs of an injury or illness are-

• The pain and suffering of the injury or illness.
• The loss of income
• The possible loss of a job and
• Health care costs

Meanwhile for indirect costs, it has been estimated ten times greater than the direct costs or even more. An industrial or occupational illness or accident can have many indirect costs, that it is always difficult to measure them. One of the most obvious in this cause is the human suffering cost to workers' families, which cannot be compensated with money. A single accident or illness can bring unanimous financial loss for both, workers or buyers.

For the above reasons, it is essential that employer’s workers and unions are committed to Health and Safety so that workplace hazards can be controlled and risks minimized. 

The effective workplace Health and Safety programs can help in a way to save the lives of workers by minimizing hazards. There are consequences. Health and Safety programs also have a positive effect on both, workers morale and productivity. 

As a conclusion for this lesson, let us recap the important points, first Occupational Health and Safety encompasses the social mental and physical well-being of workers in all occupations second poor working conditions can affect word press their families are the people in the community and a physical environment around the workplace all can be at the risk from exposure to workplace hazards.