Occupational Health Hazards: Management Program for Diesel Fumes Exposure Risks

This paper aims at establishing an effective occupational health hazard management program that could be used by AGL Energy Ltd to deal with diesel fumes exposure risks faced by employees in the course of their work. It discusses the workplace details of the company, the identified occupational health hazard, the health program chosen to deal with the risk, and the evaluation tools that would be used to assess the effectiveness of the health program.

Running Head: OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH HAZARDS 1
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH HAZARDS
Name
Institution
Course

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH HAZARDS 2
Occupational Health Hazards
Introduction
Occupational health hazards affect the worker's capability and efficiency in delivering their
services. Therefore, a proper health management program would be necessary to deal with this
problem. This paper aims at establishing an effective occupational health hazard management
program that could be used by AGL Energy Ltd to deal with diesel fumes exposure risks faced
by employees in the course of their work. First, the workplace details of the company are laid
out, the identified occupational health hazard is explained, details of the health program chosen
to deal with the risk are provided before highlighting the evaluation tools that would be used to
assess the effectiveness of the health program.
AGL Energy Ltd -Workplace Details
AGL is a public listed company in Australia, founded in 2006 has its headquarters in North
Sydney, New South Wales. The company is involved in the generation and retailing of gas and
electricity for both residential and commercial needs in the country. From the company’s
website, it has 1001- 5000 employees by the year 2016. The company operates thermal
generation plants, natural gas and storage plants, and also renewable power generation plants that
include hydro-electricity, wind power, landfill gas, solar and biomass.
Workers in power plants are exposed to a number of health hazards. In the case of AGL Energy
Ltd, those who work in the coal mines and hydropower plants are facing a number of health
hazards. The most common occupational health hazard in this company’s electricity generation
plant and coal mines is exposure to harmful gases such as diesel fumes and welding fumes

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH HAZARDS 3
(Johansson, Patwardhan, Nakicenovic, Gomez- Echeverri & International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis, 2012).
Diesel plants are used as standby plants for steam and hydropower plants. The use of diesel
engine plants in generating power leads to the emission of harmful diesel fumes that when
inhaled by the workers pose significant risks to the workers’ health (Sivanagaraju, Reddy &
Srilatha, 20101). Moreover, operators in underground coal mines use a wide variety of diesel
engines (Bugarski, 2012)
Extensive use of diesel-powered equipment by AGL Energy Ltd workers in coal mines and
hydropower plants expose them to diesel emission. These diesel engine operators, as well as
other workers, spend most of their working time around these places where the diesel engines are
used. As a result of this, they are exposed to fresh diesel aerosols and the gaseous components of
diesel emissions, including carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide
and nitric oxide. Inhalation of diesel exhaust causes a potential lung cancer risk to the workers.
Exposures to diesel emissions in closed environments may lead to death as a result of carbon
monoxide inhalation in cases where the worker is not properly protected with appropriate
respiratory protection (Greenberg, 2013). Short-term exposure to diesel emissions leads to nasal
and bronchial irritation, headache, dizziness and respiratory difficulties such as tightness of
chest. Moreover, increased incidence of respiratory symptoms such as a cough and phlegm are
reported from exposure to diesel fumes (Harbison, 2015).
The Workers Health and Safety Act 2011 (WHS Act) outlays a framework to guard the health
safety and welfare of all workers at work. AGL is required to meet the requirements of the WHS
together with supporting work health and safety regulation on such matters as notification of

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH HAZARDS 4
incidences, consulting workers and upholding workers safety within the company. AGL provides
a guide for managing risks within the company and highlights the aspects and process of risk
management (safework.com, 2017). The current risk management and control majorly focuses
on reducing operational risks related to the fire. Development of a risk management plan towards
diesel fumes exposure would help reduce the health effects of such risks.
According to Grammeno, 2009, an occupational health safety management program should be
established to help identify and eliminate or control the cause of health hazards at the place of
work. This will entail assessing the current position of the company in relation to health and
safety management. The main aim of the health program is to provide a safe working
environment that is free from occupational health hazards (Sharma, 2009). Other goals of the
program are: identify and assess all potential health hazards; eliminating or controlling
workplace hazards to avoid occupational injuries; ensure that the employees comply with the
occupational and safety health standards and regulations; and to provide guidelines for
occupational risk management.
Grammeno, 2009 highlights the various activities involved in the health program as;
identification of the hazard, assessment of the risk, risk control and risk management.
a. Identification of the hazard
This is the process of recognizing the existence of the occupational health hazards and then
defining the characteristics of the risks. For instance, identifying the areas or factors within the
organization that create the chances for the risks and outlining the types of the risks from the
various sources identified.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH HAZARDS 5
b. Risk assessment
This is the process of determining the gravity of the risk and making decisions on the actions to
take towards eliminating the risks. Risk assessment process is primarily undertaken to provide
information to the risk manager for the process of decision making through such activities as risk
classification and identifying the health impacts of the risk (Torres & Bobst, 2015).
c. Risk control
Risk control refers to the process of risk mitigation or elimination. In cases where the identified
risk cannot be eliminated, the company will engage into the work activity, appropriate controls
that will limit the health impacts of the risks to the workers’ health controls such as personal
protective equipment may be employed to control the identified risks. An effective hazard
control process entails identification and maintenance of control measures to attain an efficient
between the capabilities of the workers and the requirements of the work to reduce the likelihood
of risk occurrence (Reese, 2008).
d. Risk management
This is the process of carrying out the whole process of identifying the risk, assessing the risk
identifies, risk control and monitoring of the risk control measures to ensure effectiveness and
making the necessary adjustments where necessary. The risk assessment strategy should be
developed in such a way that the company becomes risk aversive and aware. Proper risk
assessment strategy will enable the company not only to identify short-term risks but also the
long-term ones (LAM, 2014).

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH HAZARDS 6
e. Monitoring the risk
The process of monitoring the risk requires the risk managers to keenly access the occurrence
patterns of the risk, the effectiveness of the risk mitigation plan or strategy in dealing with the
respective risks. Through monitoring of the risks, areas in the risk management process and the
risk mitigation strategy that require improvement are identified, then appropriate measures are
taken to ensure effective and efficient use of the organization’s strategy to handle the
occupational health hazards.
Implementing the health hazards management program would involve a number of activities that
include:
a. Definition of the problem- risk managers, should first explain the details of the risk
occupational health hazard in terms of its origins, impacts and the need to implement a
management program for the risk. The managers would further outline the objectives of
the program in the initial stage or implementing the health program.
b. Analysis or resources and support- secondly, it is important to identify and analyze the
quantity types of human, financial and other resources that would be needed to support
the implementation and ensure it becomes successful.
c. Searching for previous effective similar interventions- it would also be helpful for the
managers to search for and go through previous risk intervention programs that were
successful. This would allow for comparison and adjustments where necessary in the
program before it is implemented.
d. Explaining the program- here, the managers would systematically highlight the various
aspects of the program and the expected duration of the program. The assumptions, core

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH HAZARDS 7
components of the program and mechanisms that would facilitate the program are also
explained.
e. Team building and empowerment- team building, would facilitate faster implementation
of the program. Through empowerment, the team would be focused towards ensuring the
success of the program implementation.
f. Establishing organizational infrastructure- for successful implementation, the
organizational context should be developed in accordance with requirements of the
program. Moreover, there should also be a commitment from the organization towards
the success of the program. Therefore, the organization structure should be geared
towards ensuring successful implementation of the program.
g. Undertaking initial implementation and further development- once the required resources
and organizational commitment has been attained, the risk managers would then direct
the appropriate resources effectively towards implementation of the program. The
program should be flexible enough to allow for further development.
Evaluation tools for the health program
To determine the effectiveness of the proposed program in dealing with the occupational risk,
risk managers could apply different evaluation tools such as interviewing of the workers who are
directly involved in the operations of the company in the risk area; and checking on the sick
leave files to determine the number of workers who take sick leaves after implementing the
program.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH HAZARDS 8
Conclusion
Establishment of a proper occupational health hazard management program could help the
organization minimize occupational risks. An effective health program should have defined
objectives to eliminate the risks or reduce its health effects, be clearly defined with mechanisms
and core components set out clearly, are appropriately implemented and have a good evaluation
system to determine its effectiveness and efficiency in addressing the risk.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH HAZARDS 9
References
Bugarski A. D. (2012). Controlling exposure to diesel emissions in underground mines. SME
Grammeno, G. (2009). Planning occupational health & safety. North Ryde, N.S.W.., CCH
Australia.
Greenberg, M.I. (2013). Occupational, industrial, and environmental toxicology. St Louis,
Missouri: Mosby
Harbison R. D. (2015). Harmilton and hardy’s industrial toxicology. John Willy & Sons Inc.
Johansson, T.B., Patwardhan, A., Nakicenovic, N., Gomez-Echeverri, L., & International
Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, (2012). Global Energy Assessment (GEA).
Cambridge University Press
LAM, J. (2014). Enterprise Risk Management: From Incentives to Controls. John Willey &
Sons.
REESE, C.D. (2008). Occupational Health and Safety Management: A Practical Approach. 2nd
Edition. CRC Press.
Safework.com. (2017). Available at www.safework.nsw.gov.au/_.../AGL-Energy-Ltd. [Accessed
on 25th May 2018].
Sharma, S. M. (2009). Occupational Health and Safety Manual. Shalini M. Sharma.
Sivanagaraju, S., Reddy, M.B., & Srilatha, D. (2010). Generation and utilization of electrical
energy. Noida, India: Pearson.

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH HAZARDS 10
Torres, J.A., & BOBST, S. (2015). Toxicology Risk Assessment for Beginners. Springer.
Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12751-4. [Accessed May 27, 2018]