One death too many

Maurice Tanti Burló's cartoon about lift safety, in The Sunday Times (10 April), put it well: Why must awareness be the result of tragedy?

Writing to clarify its position, the Occupational Health and Safety Authority has endorsed our standpoint; that where lifts in workplaces are concerned, the law is out of date and the tools for enforcement are grossly inadequate. The OHSA has pointed out that lifts in residential buildings fall outside its jurisdiction, which leaves them in a safety limbo - except for the requirement of primary CE certification by a notified body for those lifts put into service after June 2002. Though mandatory under the Product Safety Act, this inspection requirement is still widely ignored even, if albeit indirectly, by the OHSA itself.

The OHSA is insisting we give it a list of unsafe lifts but this only serves to obfuscate the real safety issues involved. It is pertinent to note that, on the basis of its limited interpretation as to what constitutes a workplace, the OHSA takes absolutely no cognisance of hazards that may exist with lifts installed in residential buildings, though these may put at risk the maintenance personnel who work on them.

The Malta Lift Association has independently-sourced statistics which show that no fewer than 66 per cent of the lifts imported into Malta, and put into use since the introduction of specific legislation in July 2002, remain uncertified. We do not know where they are installed but comparing the number of lifts imported with the number of those certified during this period shows just such a large and worrying discrepancy. These lifts have effectively "disappeared" and this means there is no safety monitoring whatsoever.

Because primary certification by a notified body is mandatory for all lifts, the fact that they are not certified is in itself a contravention. The true source of concern, however, is that in all too many cases the lifts are uncertified not because of their owners' ignorance of the law but because they have been left without vital safety equipment to cut costs.

The intended introduction of regulations that purport to cover all existing and new lifts is a positive step but there is no target date. The recent death of a man, caused by a lift-car falling when he was working in the shaft, was not an isolated incident. It was preceded by a number of others that resulted in injury through use of lifts in workplaces. We are aware of these incidents because we make it our business to know what is happening in this area.

Safety precautions need to be observed at all times. Lift safety deficiencies, even where they are not contemplated by safety regulations, expose users to the same levels of danger, whether the lift is in a workplace or elsewhere. The OHSA, and especially all lift owners, must be constantly pro-active where lift safety is concerned.

The OHSA lift inspection format remains fossilised on the basis of Legal Notice 49 of 1964 [Factories & Hoists Regulations] and this despite the fact that the 2002 regulations stipulate additional safety equipment for lifts commissioned after June 2002. Last year, the OHSA actually refused our recommendation that the engineer's inspection format be updated to take these changes into account. This refusal gives rise to the real possibility that deficiencies in post-2002 lift safety equipment might go unnoticed, unrecorded and uncorrected.

Among the general public, most of whom use lifts on a regular basis, there is widespread lack of awareness about lift regulations and safety. This means it is fatuous to appeal to lift-users to report lift safety deficiencies, as the OHSA has done. Most such deficiencies can only be pinpointed by people who are trained to do so.

The OHSA should instead stipulate immediately that a copy of the current engineer's safety certificate be prominently displayed on all lift installations that fall under its jurisdiction. This is a simple and effective method and employees will then know whether a lift is unsafe or not through the absence or presence of this certificate. As things stand now they have no way of knowing and must take it on trust.

More injuries, and possibly fatalities, are waiting to happen. Perhaps it is time that the employees' unions took up this matter too.

Mr Abela is president, the Malta Lift Association.

mla@maltanet.net