Workers, occupational health and safety and primary health care
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The document discusses the health needs of workers and the crucial role of employers and health services in addressing occupational health and safety. It emphasizes the importance of knowledge, rights, and policies in reducing workplace injuries and improving working conditions, while also advocating for education and engagement among workers and unions. Additionally, the document highlights the need for governments to implement safety measures, ensure better equipment, and include occupational health in educational curricula.
Workers, occupational health and safety and primary health care
- 1. Workers, occupational health and safety and primary health care Health Services Public Services International 29 November 2011
- 2. How to ensure that primary health care meets the health needs of workers? Who will ensure? What will be ensured?
- 3. Who are the actors? Who is concerned? Health services: •Workers are invisible, indistinguishable and unidentified •Women workers and men workers differ
- 4. Who are the actors? Who is concerned? Employers: •Costs: of insurance, of services vs replacement •Health costs are rising; precarity is growing
- 5. Who are the actors? Who is concerned? Workers: •Workers have the necessary self- interest •Workers •Lack knowledge •Engage in unsafe/unhealthy work •Lack protection
- 6. What are the health needs of workers? In health services, workers are unexceptional: •Occupational link may or may not be salient •Worker/patient may or may not make the link •Health care worker may or may not be aware of the link
- 7. What are the health needs of workers? To employers: •Observed connections are seen •Unobserved connections depend on time, place, frequency
- 8. What are the health needs of workers? Workers have rights-based and responsibility-based issues: •Increased knowledge •Access to participation •Acceptance of prevention •Engagement and adherence
- 9. The degree of penetration of occupational health knowledge in the overall knowledge base of service providers in the health field is essential. Knowledge of relevant geographical and epidemiological risks can be critical. Often, furthermore, employers hold important information on occupational diseases related to their field of work, owing to interest, experience, or necessity
- 10. West Africa Health Sector Unions Network (WAHSUN) 6 PSI health unions: Ghana (2 unions); Nigeria (2 unions) Liberia (1 union); Sierra Leone (1union)
- 11. Affiliate action. That: 1. All Affiliate Unions/Associations must intensify education on Occupational Health and Safety at all levels in the health sector to create awareness and reduce the incidence of work place injuries
- 12. Affiliate action. That: 2. All Affiliate Unions/Associations adopt innovative mechanisms to identify workplace hazards and injuries and maintain workplace incidents book for the recording and documentation of work- related accidents
- 13. Affiliate action. That: 3. All Affiliate Unions/Associations ensure the formulation of OHS policies, legal frameworks and standards and form committees to ensure compliance
- 14. Enterprise management/ Government action Management/Governments should: 1. In practical terms ensure a safe working environment and the availability of the correct equipment and disposable supplies in adequate numbers. To reduce the high incidence of needle stick injuries, the supply of retractable syringes and needles is strongly advocated
- 15. Enterprise management/ Government action Management/Governments should: 2. Institute periodic inspection programmes for all facilities to identify occupational hazards and take immediate action to eliminate or reduce them
- 16. Enterprise management/ Government action Management/Governments should: 3. Direct the inclusion of OHS modules in all educational curricula at both Senior High School and Tertiary Institution levels to sensitize a prospective and potential workforce adequately towards occupational safety
- 17. Enterprise management/ Government action Management/Governments should: 4. Take up health worker migration issues more seriously to reduce attrition rate of health professionals in the sub-region. Right equipment, occupational health and safety, improved conditions of service, realistic salaries and other inducements should be provided to curb the attrition
- 18. The right to participate in national policy-making •Ratification of ILO Conventions and Recommendations •Application at national level
- 19. The right to participate in national policy-making •Unions to make policy not just react to policy •Fundamental principles and rights at work – the core conventions – as important as OHS standards
- 20. ILO Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 1981 (N° 155) “Each Member shall...in consultation with the most representative organisations of employers and workers, formulate, implement and periodically review a coherent national policy on occupational safety, occupational health and the working environment”.
- 21. Occupational health and primary health care Lagging legislation opens doors to patient-centered and universal approaches to integrated occupational and health care
- 22. Occupational health and primary health care Occupational health and safety policies are Healthy Public Policies
- 23. Occupational health and primary health care Unions can provide leadership to negotiate and steer health policy, alongside civil society, the private sector, communities and the business sector
- 24. “How primary health care can integrate/support the preventive services provided by workers volunteers and representatives?” can perhaps be more appropriately approached with the questions “When?” and “Where?” can this happen?
- 25. Global work: Making ILO Conventions and recommendations on OHS user-friendly: 1. 37 Standards and 19 CoP into plain language 2. Directory and key words 3. Matrix of ratifications by country 4. Applications, reports and surveys
- 26. Thank you for your attention Public Services International is a global trade union federation representing 20 million working women and men who deliver vital public services in 150 countries. PSI champions human rights, advocates for social justice and promotes universal access to quality public services. PSI works with the United Nations system and in partnership with labour, civil society and other organizations.