What good is safety without health?

We have a workplace health crisis on our hands and few people seem to care about it, says pH7 Managing Director Darryl Burn

Worksafe NZ estimate that between 750 and 900 people die each year from workplace diseases. That is things like cancers caused by prolonged and repeated exposure to solvents or pesticides and rapid onset of silicosis from the inhalation of silica dust.

I say “crisis” because the numbers are appalling and as a country, we are doing very little about it.

To put these numbers in context, death from workplace diseases are over two times the road toll, 10 times the number of drownings and 15 times the number of workplace acute deaths. Every one of these areas are getting significantly more focus and attention than workplace health.

What makes the “health” part of health and safety so difficult to address is a complex question.

Unlike acute accidents such as being hit by a falling shipping container, deaths from workplace diseases are often difficult to attribute to a single incident or even a single workplace.

They often occur many years after work has finished, and causation can be it difficult to see the crisis playing out in front of them, and even more difficult to know what to do to fix it.

What’s more, a person can often get away with poor practices, such as spraying chemicals without a chemical suit or respirator for years before feeling any ill effects, by which time it could be too late.

It’s the same reason most of us don’t look after our ourselves as well as we should until we have a health scare. So, what do we do about this? • The first step must be to raise awareness. Businesses and workers need to understand the risks that their use of hazardous substances present. • Government and industry bodies need to work together to educate high risk sectors and set out codes of practise which are designed to keep workers safe. • Businesses need to engage occupational hygienists more frequently to assess and monitor

their working environment and workers health. How do you know whether the controls you put in place are working if you’re not monitoring the outcome? • Workers need to take control of their own health and demand proper risk assessments, access to quality controls and advice.

Just because it’s a difficult problem to solve, doesn’t mean we should look away and just carry on as normal. We must take work related health seriously now!

If you work with hazardous substances, the first step you can do is ask your employer to explain the risks associated with them and what they are doing to keep you healthy and safe?

difficult, if not impossible, to determine.

For example, is the death of a farmer from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma due to his use of pesticides over many years while working, his spraying of roundup around the family home, or just bad luck?

In most cases it’s a combination of all these things. Without clear numbers, and clear causes people find Written by Darryl Burn, Managing Director of pH7. pH7 is dedicated to preventing harm to people and the environment from hazardous substances.

https://ph7.co.nz/