Understanding the Importance of Occupational Health and Safety

In the importance of occupational health and safety essay will be discussed why occupational health and safety programs in developing countries like Botswana are less respected. According to the World Health Organization occupational health should aim at the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations, the prevention amongst workers of departures from health caused by their working conditions, the protection of workers in their employment from risks resulting from factors adverse to health, the placing and maintenance of the workers in an occupational environment adapted to their physiological and psychological capabilities and to summarize the adaptation of work to man and of each man to his job. “The health of the workers has several determinants including risk factors at the workplace leading to cancers, accidents, musculoskeletal diseases, respiratory diseases, circulatory diseases, stress related disorders and communicable diseases.” Occupational health and safety deals with the health and safety of the workers, making sure that workers are not subjected to various hazards and injuries which can be found in workplaces. Therefore it is very important for every industry or company to come up with occupational health and safety programs for its employees.

Within the occupational health and safety essay it's needed to mention that occupational health and safety is very important in the way that it helps the company save money. This is so because if a company has its occupational health and safety programs intact it can help them save money which was supposed to be paid for an injured employee if the company did not have health and safety programs. For example if an employee is injured in a company it means that the company has to pay for the employee’s medical bills as well as compensate the employee which at the end the company ends up spending money one employee which is not good for the company’s economy. Another importance of occupational health and safety is that it affects the company reputation and productivity. A company can have a good reputation by just having a safe place where workers can feel safe and comfortable, for example if someone wants to apply for a job and hears that the company has had cases of employees being injured or somehow lost their lives because of the company, that person is likely not to apply in that company thus the company having a bad reputation as well as low productivity. But if a company puts the employees’ safety first it means it will have a good reputation and also productivity.

Occupational health and safety also helps the employees to be aware of their surroundings. There are numerous workers who do not make a big deal about their working environment. In any case, it is imperative to observe your working conditions. When you become more aware about the specific hazards that happen at your working environment, at that point it will help you in diminishing the hazards. It also helps reduce workplace stress, this is so in the way that when employees know that their workplace is not safe and the company is not doing anything about it the employees find themselves stressed. So it is important to have a safe working environment because the workers will be comfortable which will lead to them being productive in the company.

Occupational health and safety programs are practiced all over the world but they are less respected in most developing countries like Botswana. This is because of lack of political will and dysfunctional government institutions, governments in developing countries are failing to enforce occupational health and safety legislations and also most of them lack the understanding of the importance of occupational health and safety as well as its benefits to the economy. Some workers do not understand the dangers in their workplaces or the consequences of being exposed to the hazards and hence they do not demand any change. If a country lacks knowledge or does not understand a certain aspect that country is likely not to take that aspect seriously and this may also affect the country’s economy, for example in this case of occupational health and safety it shows that most developing countries lack knowledge of what occupational health is all about and this leads to occupational health and safety programs less respected.

Another reason why occupational health and safety programs are less respected in developing countries is because of culture. A lot of developing countries especially African countries believe so much in their culture and some cultures do not go along with some of the occupational health and safety programs. There are some companies that have occupational health and safety programs like medical checkups and tests for every employee each year and some cultural beliefs do not really support some of the tests being done on the employees. For example in South Africa where there are many cultural groups some of these cultural groups feel like giving out blood samples for test is a taboo because they fear that someone may use their blood for witchcraft and because of this occupational health and safety programs are not easily implemented. This simply shows that occupational health and safety programs are not taken serious in most developing countries and this leads to the programs being less respected.

Occupational health and safety programs is also less respected in developing countries like Botswana because a lot of developing countries lack funds which they can put aside for occupational health and safety programs. People working for the government like governmental institutions are not really provided with enough or no protective clothing at all. This is because most of the times the workers’ health and safety is not taken very seriously and those institutions that people work for do not carter their funds for safety programs in the workplace. Many developing countries Botswana being an example have problems when it comes to the economy of the country which also leads to occupational health and safety programs being less respected. This is so in the way that the countries do not see it as a need to invest in safety tools or materials for the workers since the country is already struggling economically. But little do they know that not practicing occupational health and safety can have a huge impact on the country’s economy. This is so because there can be a lot of injuries and deaths at workplaces which will force the company to pay for the hospital bills and also compensate the employee. If they practice occupational health and safety injuries and deaths at the workplace cannot be seen again. Some countries take it as because the workers are being paid for the work that they are doing so there is no need to put money to buy materials that will help workers to remain health and safety hence occupational health and safety programs being less respected.

Lack of comprehensive occupational health and safety policies or regulations is another reason why occupational health. Governments in developing countries are mostly unconcerned about occupational health and safety and this leads to the absence of occupational health where it is highly needed. Occupational health and safety is mostly needed in developing countries where people are more exposed to hazards in their workplaces than those in developed countries. Since some developing countries are not concerned about occupation health, policies about this are not implemented, it is very important for every country to have policies about occupational health to help communicate throughout the country that the health and safety of all workers is a priority. So in this case putting up a policy will urge companies and institutions to practice occupational health and safety for their employees.

In Botswana there are some regulations concerning occupational health and safety and these fall under the food control act, public health act and control of smoking act, agrochemicals act, the mines, quarries works and machinery act and the waste management act among others. Even though there are these regulations Botswana still does not have a National occupational health and safety policy which is one of the biggest reasons why some companies in Botswana are not really concerned about the health and safety of their employees.

Another reason why occupational health and safety is less respected in developing countries like Botswana can be because of lack of qualified occupational health and safety practitioners. In most developing countries there is lack of trained occupational health and safety officers who are supposed to make sure that the environment is safe for the employees. So if in a country there are not enough or few qualified occupational health and safety practitioners, it will be hard for companies or organizations to be concerned about the health and safety of the workers since there is no qualified to help the companies to implement occupational health and safety programs. As a result cases of injuries and death at workplaces are still increasing because there is no occupational health and safety practitioner who can inspect workplaces. If a company hires untrained or unqualified occupational health and safety practitioners, those people are likely to bring unsafe behaviors to the workplace which in return puts the workers in danger instead of making them feel safe and comfortable.

Lacking adequate information about occupational health and safety is also one of the reasons why occupational health and safety are less respected. If in a country people do not have enough knowledge or information about a certain issue it is very certain that they can just ignore that issue or misinterpret it. So it is the same when it comes to this issue of occupational health and safety programs, some developing countries Botswana included do not really know what occupational health is all about and some only have few information on this topic. Since they lack adequate information they take it as not an important issue to be discussed in the country, this can also lead to occupational health and safety programs to be less respected.

There is also another reason why occupational health and safety programs are less respected in developing countries and that is because of lack of occupational health and safety infrastructure. This is mostly shown the time when there was the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 where some health workers were also infected and some of them died in the process of helping people because of lack of infrastructure. “The implication of a lack of knowledge and functional preventive occupational health and safety infrastructure has enormous implications in these cases, where the shortage of health care workers is already a public health problem that is further amplified by disease and deaths caused by the exposure to biological agents.”South Africa is one of the countries with the highest drug-resistant Tuberculosis burden and it remains a big challenge till date. There was a provincial workshop in March 2014 in South Africa where there was lack of infrastructure because the workshop particitipants reported that they did not conduct any TB infection control workplace assessment in response to Tuberculosis cases. So in this case workers at that particular workplace were likely to contact tuberculosis from their fellow workmates since the assessment was not done despite the high cases of Tuberculosis. 

Poor data and data collecting systems is the last reason as to why occupational health and safety programs are less respected in developing countries like Botswana. This is so because most developing countries are bad at keeping data and this makes it hard for the effects of the hazards to be measured. Developing countries are taken as those countries that do not take safety serious which leads to poor collection of data and also keeping the data. Many developing countries cannot produce simple data on safety statistics and almost of the times the data they present are not quantified and qualified which makes it very difficult to know where the real problem is and also makes it difficult to come up with possible solutions. For example if a company is bad at keeping records they will not be able to know how many injuries or accidents have taken place in that company and how bad the situation was which can lead to accident events easily being downplayed.

In the declaration on Occupational Health of All of 1994 by World Health Organization (WHO) “it encourages the governments to prepare a special national policy and programme for occupational health that includes actions for providing competent occupational health services for all people at work. Such a programme should include the development of appropriate legal provisions and systems for enforcement and inspection by competent authorities especially responsible for occupational health.”

In conclusion to essay about occupational health and safety, after looking at all the reasons as to why occupational health and safety programs are less respected in developing countries it clearly shows that there has to improvement in cases of occupational health and safety in developing countries. There is lack of knowledge about occupational health and safety and therefore there is a need for educational intervention about this important issue because it shows that some of the employees do not really care about their working environment and are not aware of the hazards surrounding them. So to achieve the occupational health and safety goals there is a need to do collaborations with educational institutions, health professionals, putting up national policy on occupational health and safety and also asking for funds from organizations such as World Health Organization, United Nations, International Labour Office just to mention a few.

References

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• Occupational Health and Safety In Industries in Developing World by Iftikhar Ahmad, Abdul Sattar, Allah Nawaz, December 2016, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314096118