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Workplace Safety at Victoria Health and Community Service

   

Added on  2021-06-14

6 Pages2061 Words43 Views
Running head: WORKPLACE SAFEETY1Workplace Safety at Victoria Health and Community Service

WORKPLACE SAFEETY 2IntroductionAs opined by Börsch-Supan & Weiss (2016), a safe working environment results in aproductivity. Regardless of the size of the business, it is essential for every business toincorporate safety procedures in the workplace for all their staff. Safety measures ensureprotection of employees as well as safeguarding the equipment and business property. Assuggested by Di Antonio (2017), the prime motto of every business operating in any industry hasto deal with certain workplace hazards and threats which requires to be avoided or minimized byuse of workplace safety policies. In order to maintain safety at workplace it requires businessesto pay close attention to the associated hazards and accordingly identify risk mitigationstrategies. It becomes the responsibility of both organizations as well as employees to drivesafety culture at workplace. Even when leaders in the organization are focusing on evolving thework culture, an active engagement of employees will allow measures to reach its full potential.Workplace Safety in Health and Community ServiceAs per Smithies & Webster (2018), the health and community sector comprises of publicand private hospitals, old age homes, children care facilities, nursing homes and home carefacilities. The health and community sector requires continuous attention of the workers towardsthe patients. But in order to keep others healthy and safe, the workers should also take care oftheir health. As identified by Prüss-Üstün & Neira (2016), Health and community sector can beexposed to several threats and hazards which can impact the health of the workers. Thisincreased concern has given rise to several policies and checklists for hazard identification inorder to safeguard workers and other staff members. The wide range of hazards comprise ofslips, falls and trips, manual handling, infectious diseases, hazardous substances, medical waste,biohazards and work related stress. All these requires to put attention at the right time. Aluko, et.al. (2016) have opined that each healthcare facility has different workplace safety policies thatare either created by the management or with joint efforts by the management and staff.Following the safety measures starts with identifying the workplace safety hazards and waysthey can be mitigated. Employees are provided with safety hand books so that they follow theappropriate safety procedures. This will not only result in fewer accidents, but the costs ofworker compensation and lesser retaining time for replacing the injured worker will be less.

WORKPLACE SAFEETY 3Health.vic is one such health and community service website which provides the Victoriangovernment's health information (Victoria State Government, 2019a).The risks identified in Health and Community ServiceThe Victoria state government has identified certain workplace hazards that requiresimmediate attention in order to safeguard the lives of both employees and patients (Victoria StateGovernment, 2019b). The most common hazardous substances are the use of chemicals in theworkplace such as disinfectants, acids, petroleum products, heavy metals, solvents, paints andglues. The possible side effect from the exposure of these hazardous substances can bepoisoning, headache, chemical burns, nervous system disorders, skin related issues, nausea andvomiting. Workers can suffer injuries from hazardous manual tasks such as high or sudden force,sitting or standing in an awkward position, repetitive movement, and exposure to vibration. Themost common issues from manual handling hazards is musculoskeletal disorder which includesthe risk of injury from lifting, pulling, pushing, uneven floor surfaces, moving heavy objects,prolonged sitting or standing positions unavailability of people to do the task. All these can leadto physical and mental fatigue as well as injuries. Another common issue for Victorian nurses of Victoria state government Healthcare isback injury. Due to manual handling of equipment and patients, nurses become accountable oftaking care of everything and this can be challenging for them. Occupational violence andaggression is a common phenomenon seen in many organizations. Since everyone has the rightto work in a safe environment, occupational violence and aggression must not be encouraged.Elderly care request utmost attention and caring for people requires to manual lifting and movingof people which can be dangerous for both employees and the patient. Issues like cleaningbathrooms will require the workers to come across faeces, blood and vomit which may have achance of exposed to infection. Contracting of infectious diseases is probably one of the biggestreasons for Healthcare policies. Contracting of infectious diseases can cause severe issues if theyare exposed to any such diseases. Work related stress can pressurize the employees to cope upwith the situations and suffer. Stress can often lead to anxiety, frustration, emotional exhaustion,physical symptoms and behavioral changes among the workers which can create confusion anddifficulty while making decisions. Hospitals and healthcare facilities release several medicalwastes which has the potential to cause infection and therefore requires workers to carefully

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