Reflection on Health and Safety at Workplace

Running head:REFLECTIVE PORTFOLIO
Reflection on Health and Safety at Workplace
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

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Reflective Portfolio
Work plays a central role in the life of people and since most of the workers have to
spend at least 8 hours a day in a workplace, the workplace should be healthy and safe. Every day
workers all over the world are faced with several work related hazards. Health hazards are more
in vogue in the industrial sectors such as the construction industries and the mining industries,
where every day the workers are subjected go several health hazards (Friend and Kohn 2014).
For example inhalation of harmful chemicals at the workplace, exposure to construction debris,
excessive heat and smoke and more can have adverse effect on the health of the workers and
families. The manufacture industry, mining industry, oil refineries, and the construction
industries are considered as the priority industry for the work health and the safety. There are at
least 250 million of the occupational hazards occurring worldwide, out of which 335,000
resulted in mortality(Chen and Zorigt 2013). According to the reports the developing countries
are encountered with fatal hazards more than the developed countries. The number of diseases
related to workplace is much higher in reality than that of the actual number reported. The
training regarding the maintenance of health and safety in industries is important as very little
information regarding the work and safety in the Singapore manufacture industry is available.
The most common self-reported exposure to hazards are the exposure to the airborne hazards,
vibration, noises, heat, burn and obnoxious fumes (Zanko and Dawson 2012). Before this
training I had a very limited knowledge regarding the health and the safety in industries. To me,
it was only about the exposure to the harmful gases and heat. But with this workplace safety
diploma course have not only enhanced my knowledge about wide array of hazards that occurs
in industrial sectors but have also helped me to learn about suitable strategies regarding the work
place hazards.

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By the end of this course, I believe that I would be able to understand the different types
of occupational health hazards, identify the appropriate ways to identify the hazards, identify the
potential triggers that leads to hazards, understand the commitment of the management and
employees towards the prevention of the hazards, different strategies to prevent and cope up with
the hazards. In my course module we have gained idea about sensible risk management,
ergonomic, toxicology, hazardous agents, the probable hazardous industries and health and
safety management of the industrial hazards.
Ergonomics is a practice to design the workplace or the products required to fulfill the
aims of the occupational health and safety. The main aim is to make the organization a holistic
workplace to where the physical, emotional and the safety well-being of the patient should be
taken care off. Heavy metal industries involve tasks of repetitive movements, manual handling,
poor body positioning and uncomfortable height of the work station that can cause
musculoskeletal injuries and I have learnt how the employees face problems related to the
equipment operation and layout, computer systems, lighting, thermal comfort and noises and the
proposed solutions that we have learnt are more general and might not be applicable to all
settings (Mahmoudi et al. 2013). Hence I believe that the study materials should have been more
specific. For example the ergonomics intervention that has to be taken in case of heavy
engineering industries should be entirely different from a bank. Jobs that involve manual
handling cause physical stress in comparison to a bank employee who require more mental
involvement and hence strategies should be different in each case.
Increased humanization and urbanization are posing harmful effect on fauna and the
flora. The industrial pollution are affected the wetlands, oceans, rivers, lakes and the agricultural
fields. The different by-product of the industrial and the harmful wastes generated are posing a

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threat to both the terrestrial as well as the aquatic life (Schilling 2013). The quality of the surface
water near the industrial sites is heavily degraded having a water quality index below 50 which is
much lower than the normal level. The organic qualities of the soil are being affected by the
untreated industrial sludge. Furthermore the degrading air quality in the industrial areas is
posing threat to both the industrial workers and the neighborhood (Schilling 2013). Historical
vestiges are also affected by the pollution caused by the industries. Previously Iwas aware of the
environmental pollution caused by the industries, but did not have any idea about the role of the
employees or the techniques in detail to mitigate the environmental hazards.
I believe that the initial step in managing accidents is the identification of the cause of the
accident. In most of the cases, an accident occurs either due to the negligence of the employee or
the employer. I strongly believethat consistently high fatal accident rates in the developing
countries can only be controlled by occupational health and safety programs that focus on
prevention. Similarly I have also felt that the occupational health service in this country should
be developed robustly including the training of the employees and the employers. While studying
about the occupational health hazards, I have also come to know that life risk that all the
industrial and the marine occupational workers are encountered with, which have also developed
a sense of respect towards these people stick to their commitment risking their life.
I believe that my learning would help me to flourish as an occupational safety officeras I
think that I have inculcated important knowledge and skills required to become a safety officer,
where I would be able to channelize my learning and work for the betterment of the organization.
In spite of all my learnings I believe that mere theoretical learning would not help to develop
substantial skills in dealing with the real life hazards, but hands on trainings and real drills are
required to strengthen the theoretical knowledge.