Occupational safety and health awareness still low: Riot

KUALA LUMPUR: The level of awareness on occupational safety and health, particularly on exposure to diseases and poisoning among employers and industries, was still low, said Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Richard Riot Jaem.
As such, he stressed that employers needed to be more serious in addressing the issue, including immediate reporting of cases involving occupational safety and health to the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) to ensure preventive action could be taken.
"The main reason for the report is for DOSH to determine the cause of occupational accidents or ailments and take preventive action to avoid its reoccurrence.
"Meanwhile, the information compiled will be turned into the department's database, enabling analysis and strategic plans to be set up for governance and law enforcement," he said after launching the 2017 National Occupational Health Seminar here today.
Riot's speech text was read by Human Resource Ministry secretary-general Datuk Seri Adenan Ab Rahman.
The seminar organised by DOSH in collaboration with the Kuala Lumpur Hospital (HKL) aimed to boost awareness among medical practitioners on occupational ailments in the country to enable monitoring and reporting.
Riot added, based on a study by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on workplaces, poisoning cases occurred more frequently compared to exposure to illnesses, at a ratio of 6:1.
"A safe and healthy work culture needs to be instilled at workplaces to ensure that work hazards (accidents and illnesses) do not occur rampantly in this country.
"I hope that work-related accidents will continue to drop in the future, showing that Malaysia is a safe and healthy workplace," he said.
Further commenting, Riot said a combination of caring employers, employees who are of quality and productive, as well as an effective occupational safety and health management system ensured that the services and products offered by an organisation reached the level required. — Bernama