WORLD OSH DAY

Letter to Editor,

TODAY (28th April) is World Day for Safety and Health at work.

On this day every year, government, employers and workers’ organisations worldwide are encouraged to conduct awareness-raising activities within their areas of influence in efforts to reduce accidents and ill-health at the workplace.

World’s Day for Safety and Health at work is also an annual event to increase awareness about how to make work safe and healthy as well as to raise the profile of occupational safety and health.

The theme for this year’s World Day for Safety and health at work is: “ MY LIFE, MY WORK, MY SAFE WORK-MANAGING RISK IN THE WORK ENVIRONMENT”.

This theme was chosen by ILO to strongly encourage workers to examine the risks related to their own jobs.

The objective of the World Day for Safety and Health at work is to focus international attention on promoting and creating a safety and health culture that can help to reduce the number of work-related deaths each year. Safety, after all, is the responsibility of all concerned.

Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) is of worldwide concern to governments, employers, workers and their families. While some industries are inherently more hazardous than others, groups such as migrant or other marginalized workers are often more at risk of experiencing work-related accidents and ill health, since poverty frequently forces them into unsafe occupations.

Work-related accidents and ill-health place intolerable human and economic burdens on workers and their families as well as on enterprises and on society as a whole.

In Malaysia, SOCSO estimates that the related economic costs due to compensation, lost working time, interruption of production, training and medical expenses are considerably high. Last year, the total compensation costs paid out by SOCSO for industrial accidents and occupational diseases was over RM 900 million.

Conversely, there is clear evidence that a healthy workforce can enhance business productivity, benefit enterprises and national economies by reducing the number of accidents and diseases and lowering the number of insurance and compensation claims.

The overall responsibility for providing a safe and healthy working environment rests with the employers who should demonstrate their commitment to OSH.

This can be done by building and maintaining a preventative safety and health culture that address the principles of prevention, hazard identification, risk assessment and control, information and training.

Workers on the other hand have a duty to cooperate with the employer in implementing this OSH programme. They should respect and apply procedures and other instructions designed to protect them and others present at the workplace from exposure to occupational hazards.

It is estimated that more than 2 million people die from work-related illness or accidents each year.

The World Day for Safety and health at Work, celebrated worldwide including Malaysia, is an international campaign to promote safety and health at work.

Preserving human health is a key objective of social security, promoting and creating a safety and health culture can save lives and reduce costs to society.