The Occupational Health and Safety Authority believes in awareness-building to bring about a culture which goes beyond the workplace, adopts a holistic view and values risk-prevention, Social Policy Minister John Dalli told Parliament yesterday.
Introducing the OHSA's 2009 estimates, the minister said that this year the authority would have at its disposal the sum of €750,000 as well as €500,000 from the EU Social Fund that must be used between 2009 and 2011.
The authority had wider responsibilities than simply seeing there was no danger at the workplace. It sought to instil a safety culture in all stakeholders that somehow provided a service.
Indeed, enforcement was still needed because a small number of workers and employers still did not use safeguards. The authority last year had initiated action on 118 cases, and some €33,000 had been collected in fines.
Mr Dalli said that statistics showed that the 5,500 accidents reported before the setting up of OHSA eight years ago had decreased to 4,000. Fatalities in 2003 and 2004 had totalled 12, and these had been cut down to three last year. Every accident should strengthen the resolve to work in a safer environment. All stakeholders should work together to avoid such accidents and spur the required culture change on.
The OHSA was also targeting students. One of the educational campaigns undertaken was "Lighten the Load" to avoid musculoskeletal disorders, which constituted the most commonplace work-related health problems.
The authority held training sessions for construction and road-building companies, manufacturing enterprises, hotels, newly-appointed ambulance drivers, the primary and mental care sector, public service HR managers and guidance teachers. It had continued to harmonise all new occupational health and safety legislation, while reviewing existing legislation to ensure there were no regulatory gaps. Fines were being revised, more to act as a deterrent than to hurt offenders.
Opposition spokesman Anġlu Farrugia said legal and structural updates would give the authority the power to work smoothly. Besides its 27 employees it needed no less than 30 new officials to fulfil its present role. Present occupational health and safety risks were numerous, and it was important to enforce preventive measures. Immediate steps had to be taken to train people in risk prevention.
The authority needed to employ professionals such as occupational psychologists to seek the root of problems and deal with their consequences. It could not generate revenue, but funding had to come from somewhere and he suggested the government look to the EU to check about available funds.
Dr Farrugia agreed with the minister that it was important to have a change in society's mentality in general, helped through a community educational programme.
The EU considered psychological stress as an occupational hazard, and if not addressed this would account for a loss of between 20 and 28 per cent of the workforce.
Between 2000 and 2006 accidents at the workplace in Malta had remained relatively constant, whereas in the rest of the EU this had gone down by some 15 per cent. This emphasised the importance of strengthening the authority.
Dr Farrugia said the authority needed a new system of data collection for a comprehensive cover of all accidents and illnesses, so that new risks could be identified. Its initiatives should be continuously monitored so as to strengthen enforcement.
The strategic plan for 2007-2012 had to use key performance indicators to identify priorities by October 2008. If this exercise had been done, when was it expected to be concluded?
The authority needed to be better equipped, not only through financial backing, which was lacking, but also updated legislation. Why was Malta not abreast with the transposition of EU directives insofar as health and safety legislation was concerned? There could be no regulatory gaps or conflicting legislation.
Dr Farrugia said no funds were allocated to research. Perhaps the OHSA should join forces with other countries to increase knowledge.
Representative committees on the workplace could assess whether there were any risks and report them. The authority had to create a collective conscience, which could be felt publicly.
It had to work hand in hand with the trade unions because it was also in their interests to have a safe work environment. It would be foolish to ignore the economic cost of occupational hazards. The immediate benefit of enforcement would be economic growth and increased competitiveness, which would make Malta more attractive to investors.
Nationalist MP Jean Pierre Farrugia said that for the first quarter, social security benefits paid had increased by 10.5 per cent while invalidity pensions decreased by 12 per cent, showing that the authority's standards were bearing fruit. But sickness benefits for the same period had increased by 3.5 per cent.
In 2007 there had been 4,323 occupational accidents and, despite an increase in the gainfully occupied, in 2008 accidents had dropped to about 3,960. These were encouraging results.
Dr Farrugia said employees had a legal right to talk to OHSA officers when these carried out inspections at their places of work. These employees were legally protected and often meetings with employees were not held in the presence of the employer. Furthermore, employees had a right to be informed of any order or direction that OHSA officers gave to the employer.
Although Minister Dalli had not specified the qualifications that health workers were expected to have, yet the authority knew of a number of companies that had doctors whose role was limited to the verification of sickness. The 2003 legislation did not provide for how these health workers could improve the health of the employees at work.
In an interview with The Times, MEA president Joe Farrugia had said company doctors were a necessary cost to reduce abuse. Employers could not reasonably be expected to waive their rights and simply pay for sick leave. This was a reference to the cost of absenteeism and the burden this put on colleagues.
Dr Farrugia, himself a doctor, said company doctors were acting more like watchdogs than doctors. Was it time to extend or review the role of company doctors? The speaker called on doctors to become more aware of occupational health issues.
The authority was right in asking the Medical Council to offer guidelines in respect of occupational health, but this had not yet been done. It was of concern that the OHSA had not been asked to participate in the patient registration process as part of the health restructuring plan.
As an alternative to company doctors, Dr Farrugia suggested the setting up of medical centres by those companies employing sizeable numbers of employees. In other countries, visits to the emergency department had decreased by 72 per cent. Such medical centres could be set up for industrial estates and techno-parks, thereby allowing regional health centres to deal with other cases.
Marie Louise Coleiro Preca (PL) said the debate was being held at a time when Maltese workers did not even have basic conditions of work. Wherever conditions had improved, this was thanks to the EU's mandatory directives, but also to the GWU and the Labour Party, which had had their eyes on developing conditions of work for decades.
Not all employers provided the necessary safeguards, even for hazardous work, and some even expected their workers to provide the safeguards themselves. The government, too, needed to do more to instil awareness of health and safety at work.
The OHSA needed adequate funds to be able to do its work effectively and efficiently. While awareness of safety in workers and employers was important, so too was the awareness of many doctors who did not yet have it. There were certain jobs that slowly but surely affected workers' health.
Ms Coleiro Preca said things should also be aimed at the longer term, even through meaningful research. The awareness focus on children was a step in the right direction.
It was good to read statistics that showed a reduction in the number of accidents, but could one feel secure that the decrease in 2008 was really due to a trend that would continue? Proactivity would make for prevention and better risk assessment, and in turn result in better statistics.
It was shameful that too many workers were still employed on very bad conditions, to the tune of not being able to report an injury at work because they did not have sick leave.
The authority had the obligation of implementing and enforcing legislation, but it did not have adequate human resources. Its workforce needed to be beefed up.
Ms Coleiro Preca said Malta had become a forest of cranes working overhead resident families, and most people did not have a clue of what they should do. Mepa and the OHSA should work together on such issues.
Neighbours of industrial areas had no information of what was being stored in the nearby warehouses.
Winding up, Minister Dalli said he was grateful for criticism and suggestions on how health and safety at work could be further enhanced. He agreed that resources needed to be improved, but they were limited on a national basis and the government did whatever it could at a given time. The fact that all departments falling within the ministry's remit were making recourse to the same quarters was leading him to explore the possibility of amalgamating resources.
When an incident occurred at a workplace, it was not only the immediate injury that was examined but also how that incident would affect things later.
Weights carried regularly during one's working life, as well as the way they were carried, were under constant monitoring. The authority had a published five-year plan that it was continuously working on.
On primary health, Minister Dalli said the family doctor was basically the front-liner in the education of the workforce. It was true that consultation on this area was still to start. It was important to focus on new relationships, methods and practices.
Was self-regulation really working in the country, or was it being done solely in the interests of the sector involved? Everyone should keep in mind that it was the person at the end of the line that was the most important person in the circle. It was the duty of both the sector involved and the government to work closely together along these lines and instil this culture change at all levels.
It was true that between 2003 and 2004 there had been a substantial increase in the number of occupational accidents. Part of the reason was that the OHSA had taken things into its own hands and reorganised the way of gathering and publishing statistics. A set of key performance indicators would be instituted over the whole working community, and the authority would then take them on board.
One needed to know more exactly what was happening, why and how accidents could be avoided. The earmarked €500,000 from the EU would mostly go for research into this aspect.
The authority's estimates were approved with 35 votes in favour and 33 against after a division.