Management of Occupational Health & Safety - Article Example

Management of Occupational Health & Safety Cancer is among the most feared vocabulary in the modern world. Even at the workplace, the current probability according to W.H.O of developing cancer is almost one in three. In developed and developing countries exposure to known and suspected cancer causing stuff at occupational or workplace has continued to occur daily. Contemporary occupational health and safety approaches have come in place to help deal with the issue workplace carcinogens. Workers in laboratories, printing shops, agricultural work, repair shops, hospitals, and eating plants have found themselves working under these circumstances (Quinlan et al, 2000). These are substances, which have proven to be cancer causing agents. Even in the offices, people are working in, the extent of carcinogens like asbestos and formaldehyde has increased significantly. In an effort to mitigate this, contemporary occupational health and safety approaches have come into effect. These are strategies, which have controlled not only occupational diseases like cancer but also injury. For example, there is the continued provision of awareness raising-awareness activities and campaigns, coordination and enhancing information and education as well as educational programs, and provisional of basic occupational health services through the establishment of effective enforcement agencies in these working places (Quinlan et al, 2000). Since cure of Carcinogens is an elusive idea, much attention ought to go to the preventive mechanisms. From the health and safety point of view, this is still the best approach the occupational areas should extend to its workers. Many industries, firms, and offices have done a lot to eliminate the hazard at the source as the best public health standpoint. Like cholera and tuberculosis, which their effect had much mutilation through prevention measures, before the real medication came to life, the occupational carcinogens infections campaigns still takes the same approach. Cancer cases have long related to working with substances such as benzene, vinyl chloride, and others. Preventing the toxic exposure of workers to these substances is a key approach. Take for example the Canadian nation campaign aiming to convince the world that asbestos, the main agent for workplace carcinogens, may be used safely and render the workers out of danger. There has also been a fight, arising from the awareness of the workers unions, to push strongly governments to act swiftly as well as their employers in order to reverse the specter of death and disability through exposure to workplace carcinogens (Quinlan et al, 2000). The Workplace Hazardous Information System used in Canada is a good example, which provides all the workers with the right to know about all the toxic substance around their place of work. The initiative of the unions is to move to right to a truly safe and healthy workplace. This is through testing every substance before it enters the workplace, and protecting workers through engineering control technology in order to arrive to the full protection of workers through readily available measures. Mainstream approaches have not been effective in dealing with work related cancer cases. One the disturbing loopholes have been the insufficient awareness regarding the importance of a safe and a healthy environment during working time. The governments and the employers, as agents mandated with the promotion and enforcement of better working conditions, have not been effective enough. The available data on occupational healthy related menace stands as the watertight proof of the poorly implemented health and safety standards. In another realm, the failure to constitute and implement appropriate safety related laws concerning workplace and the effect of carcinogens has translated into the lack of enough measures in addressing the cancer related cases. This is an overlook as its effects yields to lost wages, medical expenses, disability, and even subsequent deaths from the workers (Quinlan et al, 2000). The occupational cancer related cases have gone without properly addressing due to lack of long standing measures in the law. For example, due to this weakness, a report by W.H.O shows that 1 million deaths occur due to exposure to pesticides on agricultural workers in Latin America and Caribbean. The continual use of powerful pesticides without law restrictions has led to higher than average cancer cases among the workers and their subsequent birth defects upon family members. The annual costs of cancer related occupational hazard goes up to US$ 76 billion in Costa Rica, and this overlooking is due to lack of proper laws regulating streamlining measures of occupational health and safety, as this continues to contradict International Labor Organization (Quinlan et al, 2000). These are the main areas where mainstream approaches have overlooked while trying to mitigate the problem of occupational cancer related cases. Finding occupational cancer case is like looking for a single grain of sand in a sandbox. Occupational cancer comes through wholly or partly exposure to a cancer causing agent (carcinogen) at place of work. Work related cancers have proven a stubborn case to go by even though hospitals harbor sophisticated diagnostic equipments aiding the search. Unknown to the workers, many find themselves exposed to so many carcinogens and these agents can stay in human bodies between the ages of childhood until adult phase (Quinlan et al, 2000). The subsequent exposure to minimal agents of cancer during one’s tenure of work provide the cancerous cells with enough time to group together and form tumors. One of the cruelest notions about workplace cancer is the understanding that the cancerous cell, right from its start due to exposure at place of work, maybe a cell, simply too small, just a single cell amidst the billions that make up the human body. This makes it undetectable, not like malaria whose infection constitutes to changes in body temperature immediately. One would argue that work place cancerous infections are just like other forms of cancer, which can hide behind bodily organs. Given the idea that most workers may not afford the expensive diagnostic procedure at an early screening, these dormant cells continue growing as the poor worker, works in continual exposure to more carcinogens (Quinlan et al, 2000). On another aspect, some of the office occupations would rarely pose as a danger of exposing any worker to carcinogens. With so many causes at the worker’s ignorance, many tumors, through metastasis process, spread all over the body and this results in many fatalities to occupational patients for they little too late have to deal with the devastating effects of workplace cancer. Employers, the state, and workers have developed a divergent view of workplace cancer. If at all it were there, then comprehensive measures from the government to regulate the industries, firms, and working institution on how to uphold occupational health and safety measures would be in place. Take the case of Canada; the workers have hatched their own initiative to stamp their feeling on the causes of occupational fatalities out of cancer (Quinlan et al, 2000). They have moved beyond the ‘right to know’ to a level where they advocate for ‘right to a truly safe and healthy workplace’. This is what has motivated their perspective. In this case, one may believe that in order for workers to control the exploitation the employers, this is the reason why the international and feeder labor unions have to be in place. Most workers in developing countries are poor, and they need the job. It is this delicate balance that many employers take advantage of, and go on to make use of increasingly strong carcinogen substances to bolster their production especially in agricultural industries. Through these unions globally, there is an increased awareness and the pressure for change makes things much better. The government and the employers seem to have adopted the concept of ‘acceptable risk’ in order to get workers into these expository areas. The sectors adopt this cost benefit approach at the expense of the workers’ health status (Quinlan et al, 2000). In a country where the government allows such measures, the cost benefit is what seems to benefit them. Even with Canada and US industries having recorded a reduced exposure level through engineering method, the acceptable risk concept seems not fading away any near soon. This economic decision by the government and the employers is a proof that some cases of cancer related to work place emanates. For the past hundred years, science has managed to identify workers as the guinea pigs. Researchers have shown that workers have tested toxic substances and this has even multiplied to the rest of the society. According to scientists and physicians, there is enough evidence to prove that cancer is strongly related to substances used by employers such as asbestos, vinyl chloride, formaldehyde, and benzene (Quinlan et al, 2000). As a means of helping the continual exposure to carcinogen substances in the workplace, the scientists have offered this information to governments, and employers. The effectiveness of the government to implement these suggestions in order to lower down the exposure level still has found some challenge. Take the case of the American Conference of Governmental and Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), who took over 30 years to lower the use of asbestos (Levy, 2011). Therefore, scientific interventions have provided standards, which, if applied, would expose workers to relatively small proportions of chemicals. The study case whether politics and economics influence science is undisputable truth. Take the example of the ‘acceptable risk’ measure which employers have taken consideration despite the scientific options in place. Their move is a cost benefit approach, and the government shares the same. Like the scientist, Epstein named his book ‘The Politics of Cancer’, there are many aspects clouding the initiatives to tame occupational cancer (Quinlan et al, 2000). Much now is all about science and cancer, but its total control, especially occupational cancer largely depends on politics. This is a proof that politics and economics perspective influence scientific interventions. In addition, despite numerous attempts to question the notions of whether there is any acceptable and safe level of exposure of workers to these substances (Quinlan et al, 2000). There are economic and political gains underlying these decisions, but there is no excuse for continual exposure of workers to carcinogens in their workplace in the first place. Reference Levy, B. S. (2011). Occupational and environmental health: Recognizing and preventing disease and injury. New York: Oxford University Press. Quinlan, M. et al. (2000). Managing occupational health and safety: A multidisciplinary approach. South Yarra, Vic. : Macmillan. Read More