Occupational health and safety grew up in the environment of the large factory and enterprise. Today, the World Health Organisation claims that we are only now learning to carry it out in small enterprise and the informal sector.
“Regrettably, the concept that the workplace is an important arena for health campaigns of many kinds, as well as basic occupational health and safety programmes, is not yet widely accepted,” according to the WHO. So most countries empower their organisational health and safety authorities to ensure that any breach of health and safety guidelines are identified early and if need be sanctions applied to ensure proper enforcement.
The Maltese Occupational Health and Safety Authority issued an update of its activities in the first half of 2015. It reported that it inspected 1,000 workplaces in this period and issued 91 notifications of administrative fines and appointed 103 court cases.
There can be no doubt that strict enforcement is a tool that needs to be applied to protect the health of workers and their families.
The workplace directly influences the physical, mental, economic and social well-being of workers and, in turn, the health of their families, communities and society. The workplace today is changing fast and so are the risks being faced by workers. The OHSA is justified in warning about the legal requirements related to equipment. For instance, the authority highlights “one important measure is the proper use of protective guards around mobile parts of machinery”.
However, most doctors will tell you that work-related illnesses they treat today are more connected to the use of modern office equipment. Eye strain as a result of improper use of computer screens, repetitive stress syndrome caused by continuous use of keyboards, and back pain caused by unsuitable office chairs are less dramatic but equally harmful effects of improper health and safety processes in the office environment. Another major health and safety risk that apparently has not been sufficiently well addressed by the OHSA is the use of mobile phones by workers while driving their company vehicles. Who has not witnessed such abuses while driving on our roads?
It would be interesting to see if in its next report the OHSA confirms whether it is updating its list of risks to which most workers are today exposed in the changing work environment.
The European Network for Workplace Health Promotion had defined workplace health promotion “as the combined efforts of employers, employees and society to improve the health and well-being of people at work”. Workers’ participation in this process is of crucial importance. The adherence to good health and safety guidelines is only a small part of the vision of a healthy workplace.
The promotion of heathy lifestyles and non-occupational factors in the general environment are also essential. Non-occupational factors include family welfare, home and commuting conditions and community factors which affect workers’ health. More progressive employers recognise that there are multiple determinants of workers’ health.
A person-focused intervention tries to adopt a more comprehensive approach that acknowledges the combined influence of personal, environmental, organisational, community and societal factors on employee well-being.
The OHSA may need to redefine its vision of a healthy workplace. It must look beyond the traditional life-threatening risks that construction and other heavy industry workers face. With employers and workers it must promote healthy lifestyles and support their maintenance with appropriate information, counselling and educational measures.