Occupational Health Policies for Promoting the HIV/AIDS Management Program - Research Paper Example

Whilst many employees are guided by the traditional legal approach to workplace health and safety, which centers on the understanding of employers’ common law of duty care which posts that the employer often has duty care to the safety of the employee, during the contemporary period, it is increasingly becoming popular that even the employee has to meaningfully contribute to the cause of HIV and AIDS epidemic, particularly at the workplace since it is wiping out the productive workers (Benjamin & Barry 2006).

The productive age group is mainly affected and effort should be made to contain the catastrophic situation.The regulation of health and safety is a complex and difficult subject to understand since there is no single, universally agreed policy that compels all the companies to adhere to a specific framework in their operations. With the growing concern about the impacts of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which has ravaged across the spectrum especially on the productive age group, organizations have come to realize that there is every need to formulate the policies that are meant to raise awareness of the dangers of the deadly virus in their respective organizations.

Many people still believe that the AIDS epidemic is a myth and there is unusual ignorance as well as stigma and discrimination surrounding the disease. This negative attitude is not only painful to the infected person but it stretches to the family, community as well as the employer who will lose production. Against this background, there is a growing consensus that this disease must be treated with respect just like any other life-threatening disease. However, for the sake of economic development, the employer should have a special obligation to suggest and implement appropriate policies at workplaces as a way of trying to mitigate the impacts of this deadly disease.

There is a wide variety of responses available for business as far as the management of HIV/AIDS is concerned. However, much still needs to be done to integrate Occupational Health and Safety.