Regardless of the fact that the Water Services Corporation published a health and safety manual in 2004 for its employees, the number of work-related injuries at the Water Services Corporation has increased heavily, a recent study has found out.
Joseph Ross carried out the study in May 2006 as part of his diploma in Water Operations Management.
The study examined the effectiveness of health and safety practices in the Water Services Corporation (WSC).
In 2002, 11 employees were out for 81 days due to injury duty, which increased to 616 days with 28 employees. In 2004, 33 employees called in for 442 days of injury duty.
However, in 2005, a total of 1,471 days of injury duty for 50 employees were registered. Between January and March 2006, 255 days were lost, while 13 employees reported injuries.
In 2004, the WSC published a Health and Safety Manual when the corporation introduced the occupational health and safety (OHS) intervention initiative. Mr Ross pointed out that the introduction of OHS practices usually entails a decrease in injury incidence – which was not the case at the WSC.
The study pointed out that there was no recorded reason for the behavioural gap in the injury rate between 2002 and 2003 – number of days lost increased from 81 to 616.
Mr Ross pointed out that even though the WSC took over the Drainage Department in 2003, increasing the number of employees by 500 people, “yet this is not an attribute to the increase in injury rate”.
He added that the former employees of the Drainage Department “do not necessarily entail being prone to injury at work since much of the work is very similar to that of other WSC employees, especially in technical areas such as pipe laying and trenching operations”.
However, he said one possible reason why there was an increase of three employees between 2004 and 2005, who reported injury on duty, might have been due to an increased awareness of occupational health and safety.
One of the limitations with the data available is that it is collected by the WSC solely in relation to injury-leave and other benefits and does not “have as its explicit objective the intention to decrease injury rate.”
Furthermore, the study said that even though, according to the WSC Health and Safety Manual, the health and safety officer is required to record and analyse data on injury – it is not being done.
A total of 35 employees participated in the study, which was carried out in face-to-face interviews.
Over half of the participants, 54.3 per cent, were between 41 and 50 years old, while another 40 per cent were over 50. The remaining 5.7 per cent were aged between 31 and 40.
Almost all the respondents, 97.1 per cent, had been in employment for 15 years and one employee (2.9 per cent) had been employment for 11 to 15 years.
Although 54.3 per cent of the employees said that they knew about the WSC Health and Safety Manual and that it was of assistance to them, none of the respondents said that the WSC asked them for feedback on the manual.
The report also pointed out that although another 88.6 per cent of respondents were given training on OHS practice, “the WSC failed to see the need to communicate with its employees to see if they complied with the guides stated in the OHS manual.”
Furthermore, the report added, all the respondents said the WSC needs to invest more resources to establish a workplace free from OHS hazards.
Although 94 per cent of the workers said they use protective clothing in the workplace, over half, 54 per cent, said that sometimes it was not available. However, the remaining 46 per cent said the protective wear was available.
According to the study, 45 per cent of the participants said there were occasions when wearing protective clothing could have avoided injuries while 55 per cent said that they had never found themselves in similar situations.
It also found that 23 per cent said they were injured while working. Of these only one worker was not wearing protective gear.
The majority of the respondents called for better quality tools and modern heavy-duty vehicles, the report said.
The workers asked for “small excavators so that we do not damage our backs... we are getting older.”
They also asked for more protection from the sun, more safety clothing and more carefully planned construction plans.
“The pipe chamber must be located at the side of the street and not in the middle,” they said.
However, when Mr Ross put forward these views to the health and safety officer, he said “no request was made to his office regarding the purchase of small diggers to ease heavy lifting and jackhammer use – two activities which strain the lower back”.
The workers also complained about the bad state of the WSC vans that are caused by “bad wear and tear and jeopardises WSC in the likelihood of emergency manoeuvres and loss-of-control situations.”
Once again, the health and safety officer stated that once “the WSC vehicles pass the Vehicles Roadworthiness Test they are considered as being safe”.
The report said: “This fact alone leaves much to be desired of OHS practices, when further considering that the lives of the WSC employees might be at peril.”
Furthermore, the employees also complained that there were no health and safety inspections carried out.
All the employees said that they did not make use of goggles or safety glasses when using jackhammers or hand-held equipment.
Even though these were periodically certified, the employees said that the goggles “hamper their work and interfere with their vision, especially when operating jackhammers.”
They also stated that they were not used to wearing them, because when they tried wearing them they got scratched easily and need to be wiped continually.