IS YOUR WORKPLACE IN LINE WITH SAFETY PRECAUTIONS?

This is the post that should have been done yesterday.

I am always somewhat gob-smacked, when I do a 'Needs Analysis' in companies and we get to the Safety and Security part of the questionnaire and there is nothing. No fire extinguishers (or if they do have them they sheepishly admit that no-one knows how to use them), no first aid kits - nothing!

It is usually at this point that I tell them the story of the colleague who lost everything and this is a true story! Let's call him Joe.

Joe had (and note the word 'had') a video store. Once day he got a frantic call from his employee saying that the kitchen was on fire, they couldn't put it out and they couldn't get through to the Fire Department, or the police or the 10111 emergency number. Joe himself tried all three avenues without any success and even called upon friends who were connected, without any luck.

By this time the employee was really frantic! Joe remembered that there was a fire extinguisher in the store and told the employee (who was an inexperienced youngster probably fresh out of school) to use the extinguisher. Sound advice, I am sure you would agree. Thr problem of course was that the fire was, shall we say a type "A" fire and the fire extinguisher was for a type "B" fire. The result was that as the mixture came in contact with the fire, the fire burned more ferociously and within minutes the whole establishment had burnt to the ground.

Of course, everyone was up in arms about the the fact that he could not get hold of anyone at the Fire Department, and that the Police were of no use and of course the emergency number was worse than useless and on that note I can find no fault! However having said that, surely he needs to take some of the responsibility?

Surely his staff should have been trained on how to use the extinguisher - if they had been trained (or even if he had been trained himself) they would have known that the mixture in the fire extinguisher was for a different type of fire. If anyone of them had been trained on the basics of fire fighting they probably would have known how to fight that particular fire.

So, even if you are a small business, with one or two staff members - one of you need to know the basics of fire fighting and the basics of first aid.

Think about it logically and make the right decision!

Is your workplace in line with safety precautions?
Theo Garrun

15 August 2007 at 06h00

There are those who say that the labour laws and other legislation in this country make it almost too onerous for companies to be in business. That may be true, but there is no doubt that many of the laws that exist are there to ensure that workers are properly treated and so their existence is essential. One piece of legislation that falls into this category is the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHS) which ensures safe working environments for all. Much of the emphasis of the OHS act is, understandably, on factories and workshops and on dealing with hazardous materials, but there are some paragraphs that apply to all workplaces and one in particular that doesn't seem to be complied with very much.

It is found in the general safety regulations under point 3 - first aid emergency equipment and procedures. It requires every organisation to have on site at all times a qualified and competent person who can administer first aid, together with the required equipment for this to happen. There are fines and prison sentences for those who don't. The question is: How many companies comply with this? Not many, according to Darryl Egen of the Dynamic Academy of Life Empowerment (DALE), a qualified paramedic with years of experience on the roads and in the skies."Sometimes we would be called to a workplace emergency to find no basic first aid had been administered and, tragically, lives have been lost as a result," he says.

Egen points out that the legislation requires one person for every 50 employees to be "readily available during working hours and who is in possession of a valid certificate of competency issued by an approved organisation".

What that means is that the person must have been trained up to a specified level by an accredited training institution. "In South Africa at the moment, that means an organisation registered with the Resuscitation Council of SA (RCSA)," Egen says. The criteria for approved trainers and training centres is onerous. Specific equipment is needed and the trainer must have been an experienced paramedic who has undergone further training. "The curriculum is strictly laid down and we may not deviate from it," Egen says. "The cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) modules come from the American Heart Association (AHA) and we stick to their manuals." To become a "qualified and competent" person as the regulation requires, the person must, apart from being able to administer emergency care in a range of possible scenarios, demonstrate competency in CPR and be able to competently operate an Automated Electrical Defibrillator - a piece of machinery used to shock patients who have gone into cardiac arrest: it is a compulsory item in the first aid kits that the regulations require organisations to have. "And the protocols change all the time," Egen says. "So we, as instructors, have to keep up to date and the qualified first aider also need to undergo refresher courses."The regulations require that employers have clearly marked first aid kits kept in accessible places. DALE offers a consultancy service to organisations, assessing the risks involved, training the required staff members and advising on the contents and placement of first aid kits."We do training on site or at our own premises," Egen says. "To be fully competent requires three to four days of training and at the end of that you receive a certificate issued by the RCSA and AHA."

DALE also does security officer training, along with martial arts instruction and first aid training for personal trainers and childcare professionals. Contact them on 082-866-7818.