CASES OF ACCIDENT ON HUMAN HEALTH - SAFETY TIPS

            Every accident has one or more identifiable causes. Determining where, when and how accidents occurs is fundamental to understanding the causation and implementing preventive measures. Once the circumstances and causes have been identified, effective measures can be taken to prevent similar occurrences.
            The majority of accidents incidents are not caused by “Careless workers” but failures in control (either within the organization or within the particular job), which are the responsibility of the management (Abkduwitz, et al 2008).

            Mark (2008) in his contribution believe that   80 out of every 100 accidents are the fault of the person, involved in the accident. According to him, unsafe acts causes four times as many accidents as unsafe conditions.
            The enumerated what he called “Sever common causes of Accidents?
            Taking shortcuts-Every day we make decisions that we hope will make a job go faster and more efficient often times when we think we are saving time,  we have to be careful that we aren’t jeopardizing our health or the health of one our employees. Shortcuts that reduce the safety of the job aren’t shortcuts, but are items that might increase our changes of injury.
Being overconfident-confidence is a good thing much of a good thing. Believing that nothing can happen to you is an attitude that can lead to improper method of doing your work. And can always cause accident ignoring safety procedures-Ignoring safety procedure, intentionally or unintentionally, can endanged you or other employees. “Casual attitudes about safety can result in a casualty” (Abkute et al 2008).
Starting a job with incomplete instruction we know in order to a job safety and o it right the first time; we need a complete set of instruction. Employee can make a mess of a task or assignment because he didn’t have sufficient instructions or the instruction weren’t clear. Caring out a  duty without adequate instruction is major sources of accident.
Poor house keeping-anytime your site whether it is the quaintenance shops storage areas, offices, etc. it can cause accident.
Kental is tractions from work-Bring outside problems to work can keep you form focusing on you job. If this happens, it can be a heard. Friends coming by while you are at work can cause a distraction and can keep you form focusing. Both of these incidents can put you into a hazardous situation which is prone to accident.
Salla (2009) referred to the causes of accident as accident sources. According to him, they include such factors that can cause or contribute to an accident endangering human health or safety. In this context, the term ‘ accident” sources” is used to refer to potential and realized accident causes and contributors. He examined accident sources using reason’s (1997) categories of causes of organizational accidents. According to the Reason grouping, Technology-based failures, which are independent of human actions, but have potential to cause accidents by damage post- maintenance system reliability or human safety during maintenance operations. Another cause of organizational accident according to reasons is human-based failures. Which can be organizational factors or  unsafe acts, while hazardous condition include reason’s local workplace factors which corresponds to springs and materials, and design and environment in perrour’s normal Accident Theory (1999). Similarly, human-based factures refers to human performance at different organizational levels. Thus, it includes workers (operations in perrouis theory) and organizational factors. Such as management and organizational factors. Such as management an supervision. Finally technology based failures refers to technical failures and mal functions which can be the reasons for maintenance, but also the  cause of accidents during maintenance operations. Following the simplified grouping, technology-bused failures are the third group of interest, along with hazardous conditions and human-based failures. The human-and technology-based failures. Are basically failures or deficiencies in the functioning of people or machines. Since both human-and technology-based failures and hazardous conditions have the potential to cause accident during maintenance work, they are referred to here as accident sources.
            A system can be defined in various ways, depending on the focus of interest. For examples, kircchsteiger (1999) defined the system as “ an assemblage of elements (components ) that operate together in some relationship to achieve a common objective (a plan0” this definition conforms to perroui’s (1999) approach which fulfills kirchsteiger’s definition of humans as elements in a system. According to perrous, “…..system accidents, as with all accidents, starts with a component failure most commonly failure of a part, say a valve or human operator:. The concept “social technical system” reers to the technical system with the human operators (perrow, 1999; remain, 2001). Following perrous’ view, the concept of failure includes such human- and/or technology-based deviations in a system that differ format he intended behaviour/use and can lead to unwanted consequences. Such consequences can be variations in product quality of system reliability, or deviations in occupational safety. System here, refers to the object of maintenance, which can be machine, process or a part of process.
            Root causes are the initiating factor that launch the chain of events leading to an unwanted outcome. In common with any accident sources, a root cause can also be a human or technology-based failure or hazardous condition. Gbenga (2003) emphasized that there is no need investigating the cause of accident instead the effort and time expended in should be used be on accident prevention. According to him ‘the majority of accident are near-miss and may never be reported. However, be opposite that the cause of accident can be broken into two basic components, unsafe condition and unsafe acts. Unsafe conditions are hazardous conditions or circumstances that could  lead directly to an accidents. In the other hand, on unsafe act occurs when a worker ignores or is not aware of a standard operating procedure or safe work practice designed to protect the worker and prevent accidents.
The table above illustrate unsafe act and condition
TABLE 1
SUMMARY OF UNSAFE ACTS AND CONDITION
Unsafe acts
Unsafe condition
Operating equipment or machinery without permission
Lack of guarding on machinery
Defeating safety devices
defective tools or equipment
Unsine defective equipment
Crowding workers into one area
Using the wrong tool for the job
Inadequate alam  system
Not using personal protective equipment
Fires and explosions
Incorrect lifting techniques
Poor house keeping
Working while intoxicated horseplay
Hazardous atmospheres excessive noise inadequate lighting
Extracted form
All the examples of unsafe acts and condition given in table 1 are the result of personal or job factors. Personal and job factors and the root causes of accident. Gbenga 92003) further expand in Table above the personal and job factors which can lead to an unsafe act or condition.
TABLE 2
PERSONAL AND JOB FACTORS
Personal factor
Job factor
Lack of knowledge or skills due to inadequate training
Non-existent or poorly developed work standard
Improper motivation
Substandard equipment  design
Physical limitation of the worker
Poor equipment maintenace
Distractions which interfere with the worker’s ability to concentrate on their job
Purchases of substandard equipment, tools, and materials

Unsual increase in equipment usage
The personal factors described in above table generally lead to unsafe acts and the job factors are likely to contribute to the unsafe conditions.
            Dems et al (2012) examined what they called the myths about industrial safety as an assumption of the causes of industrial accident. They are:
Human error
            Human error and unsafe behaviour accounts for almost 90% of all accidents, including those caused by inexperienced and unskilled workers. The most common cause of accidents or industrial accidents is often attributed to human error such as operational error, judgmental error, or job related error, all of which are caused by human characteristics. Most of these errors are said to be associate with psychological factors affecting human behaviour. The disaster caused by human error are too serious, because the automation in the construction is difficult and a lot of workers support the construction work. The larger the number workers who work on the site is, the higher the possibility that human errors caused accidents Denis (2012).
            A number of books and papers have been written about human error, an increasing number of them openly question the simple minded use of the term (e.g Dekker, 2005; Hollnagel and Amalberti, 2001, Woods et al; 1994) yet as the above announcement shows, the myth of human error as the cause of most accidents prevails. Human error is also a fundamental part of many accident causes. This is because if human error or mistakes form individual workers should be avoided industrial accident would have been minimized in our working places (Lola 2001).
Non-compliance with procedure can be said or referred as references for how to carry out a given task, for instance as a memory aid, or as guides for decisions in situations where people have little or no experience. Procedures vary in nature, size and complexity and may range from a 6-line cooking receipt to entire bookshelves of ring binders in control rooms of nuclear power plants. Here, industrial accident can be minimized if these procedures is strictly followed. But in a case where people decide to ignore the instruction and to it their own way, they will likely have accident. And in any case, it is the duty of the management to provide the workers with safety instruction to enable them not only have the job well done but not to jeopardize with safety.
            Another way accident can be Denis et al is lack of protection. In manufacturing industries, some of the materials or equipments used can be dangerous or hazardous to the health of the  worker. It is the duty of  the top management to make appropriate provision for protective equipments (hard hats goggles. etc) against such hazards. For instance, welders seldom have to be remined to use their welding shield. This is simple because not using a shield leads to acute pain in the eyeballs within a matter or hours due to the intense UV light emission during welding.
            Onyeka (2004) in his examination of the cause of accident posit that they are five major causes of accident in a working place. He attributed the causes to management carelessness to employee welfare. The five reasons according to him are:
Poor leadership from the top: The inability of the top management to coordinate the activities of the organization in a proper way will always lead to inadequate protection of  the worker in an industry thereby endanger their lives.
*          Inadequate supervision: Supervision who are unable to pay adequate attention to the welfare of their subordinate, will end up allowing accident which could possible endanger the life of their subordinate or supervisees.
*          Insufficient attention to the design of safety into the system or careless attitude.
*          An unsystematic approach to the identification, analysis and elimination of hazards in production industry will always keep accident reoccurring in organization.
*          Poor training facility and employee motivation management should be responsible in training of the employees on how procured equipment should be used. Inadequate training of employees especially in the area of new technologies could endanger the life of workers and at the same time cause  dexterous damage in the organization.

SAFETY
            How to develop a safety programme in an organization
Safety should be an integral part of the total buiness activities of an enterprises. This should be reflected in the overall management instruments for individual sits. Safety should be strategic in natural and should be prioritized in the organisation’s programme.
            To achieve a safe workplace, the employees as well as management and contractors must belief that safety is a critical part of the business. This includes the intention to act consistently with this brelief, and the genuinely safe behaviour by all. Such a result is founded in the  safety culture created by management in cooperation with other employees.
            The starting point for establishing a good  safety programme is to identify leaders in organsiation who should be completely responsible for safety, the initiation of effort, promote and co-ordinate the  introduction of safety programme, ensure effective communication and generally oversee the programme’s implementation. The leaders here, should involve management. It is critical to the success of the effort that sernior managers of the enterprises who are in a position to take action are committed to the safety programme. Davide (2005) staffs that should be allowed into this stage should be those technical experts and those with hand-on knowledge. According to Kalhill (2003) it is important that the safety programme reflects and detailed understanding of the hazards associated place and the types of data collected on a formal and informal basis to morntor safety. The therefore concluded that safety team leaders should include/or have acess to safety managers, engineers, operators and other members of staff with an understanding of relevant operations and safety related policies, procedures and practices. Kalhill also emphasized on the importance of resources committed. According to him, to development and implement and effective and efficient safety, there need to be “sufficient support and resources” the team should evaluate the implementation costs and business benefits.
            Another step according to David (2005) is identification of the subject to be addressed by the safety programme. As soon as the team and other arrangements are in place. He believe that each enterprise will have different hazards and risks management systems, activities, monitoring programme and corporate culture. Therefore each enterprises will need to decide on its own priorities, in order to choose the appropriate indicators and the way thing will measured. One of the ways of do this is by looking at each process in your enterprise and identifying critical hazards. Analysis relevant processes on a step- by stay basis will help to identify potential hazards. For each of the hazards, potential review the related safety policies procedures and practices that are in place, and identity those that are more critical to risk control or most vulnerable to deterioration over time.
            The third step believed to be very important step by David (2005) is identification of outcome and activities in dictator. This step will help the term to know whether programme is working as expected. According to him, outcome indicators are designed to collect data and provide results to help you answer the broad question of whether the issue of concern is achieving the desired result. Ie the safety policy, procedure than practice that is being monitored. Thus, an outcome indicator can help measure the extent to which a targeted safety policy, procedure or practice is successful.
            An effective safety performance indicator conveys clear results regarding safety performance to those with the responsibility and authority to act on matters related to safety.
            The fourth stage in the development of safety progrmme in an organization is known as activities indicator. Activities indicator simply means to monitor the key issues of concern identified in step two. According David (2005) activities indicators relates to you identified outcome indicators and helps to measure whether critical safe policies procedure and practices are in place to achieve the desired outcomes. Whereas outcome indicators are designed to provide answers about whether you have achieved a sagely outcome, activities indicators are designed to provide  information about why or why not the outcome was achieved. Therefore, well-designed activities indicators provide insights needed therefore indicators provide insights needed to correct policies procedures and practices when the desired outcome is not being achieve.
            Collection and reporting of data is the fifty stage in developing a good safety programme in an organization which he called  David (2005) explains that the major concern at this stage should be the procedure for the collect in of data for example, data some what the reports will look like as well as roles and responsibilities for collection and reporting. Should be specified the added that in “evaluating data sources, it is often usual to review data that are already available and decide whether the could be used to support the programme”. Existing data may have been collected for other activities such as quality control of business efficiency. If useful existing data are identified, it is important to evaluate whether the data are adequate quality for safety programme and to organize an/or apply the data to achieve the purpose of the safety programme Kalhill (2003), agreed with David and added that data collection produces should take into account the frequency with which data should be collected and result reported in light of the functions of each indicator relative to safety performance. Data should be collected and results reported at  a frequency necessary to endure that they an detect changes in safety critical systems in time to action. In addition, reports should be provided in a timely manner to management, a propirate safety officer and or other relevant employees with responsibility for active on a specific safety issues addressed by the indicators. Furthermore, Kalhill (2003) listed there features of  good presentation of safety report
(1)       Report should be as simple as possible in order to facilitate understanding of any deviations form tolerances and to identify any important trents.
(ii)       A good report should also all the reader to understand the links between outcome indication and associated activities indicators.
(iii)     It should also take into account the target audience.
            Acting of on the findings or report is the sixty stage in the development of safety programme in an organization. Here, senior managers, safety management personnel, engineer operators and other relevant employees should receive the result of the programme in a timely way and should follow up adverse finding to fix defects in the associated safety policies procedures and practices. When a deviation is noted, it may also the safety programme it self its,  where there it was define well enough to detect the safety issue of concern and whether improvements can be made to the indicators thus, deviations detected in using safety report represent an opportunity for learning and adjusting (David 2005) Rosky (2008) posit that while implementing safety programme you may also encounter situations where outcome and activities indicators associated with the source  subject provide contradictory results. When this occurs, it is indication that one or both indicators are not working as intended. The indicators should be reviewed and redefined as necessary.
            The last stage in the development of safety programme according David (2005) is evaluation and refinement of safety performance. Developing an effective safety programme demand periodic and evaluation. According to him, developing an effective safety programe is an iterative process and the programme should be refined as experience is gained or new safety issues of convern are identified as a result of the instructions of new technology of methods. Periodic review help to ensure that the indicators are well-defined, continue to address priority area f concern, and provide the information need to monitor safety measures and to respond to potential safety issues. In addition, it help toidentify when specific indicatios are no longer needed. For example, the issues of concern can change over time due to improvements in safety or insinghts into previously underntified issues. Some of the changes may result form. Improvement in management systems; alternation in plant design, introduction of new technologies, equipment or processes, or changes in management or staffing.
            Smith 92007) advice industrial operators at this stage to always share information with other companies especially those that have successfully implemented safety programme. These can be other enterprises in your same industry or other industries with hazardous installation. Industry associations can help make these connections and promote overalls improvements in the field of safety performance.
            Andrews et al (2001) explained the importance of cooperation with the public and other stakeholder sin developing and maintain good safety programme. According to them creating and maintaining good confident relationship with the public and other stake holders I essential to ensuring confidence in the safety of the enterprise. Among these stakeholder are the  representatives of community, hospitals and other health/medicals ervices schools nursing homes environmental groups and media. Andrews et al (2001) further stated that co-operation with external stakeholders is not always an easy task and can only be reached if the enterprises, acts in an open and pro-active manner, maintaining a continuous dialogue with interested parties. Information should be shared  concerning the chemical and chemical processes at the enterprise, including safety measure used to prevent chemical accidents/incidents top management should demonstrate to the public their personal interest and commitment to safety issue.
            In the case of other enterprises, Andrews et at believe that experience with safety-related issues should be shared in order that problems encountered by one enterprise are not repeated in order enterprises. Those that could benefit from such information sharing are those enterprises within the same geographical area; those with the same sector of the industry, those using similar type of manufacturing processes and using the same type of chemicals and/or those with a producer-user relationship.
            Some of the benefit derivable form such cooperation include:
Learning from each other in general, especially with respect to avoiding accidents.
*          setting a general level of safety performance
*          Spreading knowledge of the state of the a
*          Offering assistance to small and medium-size enterprises (SMES)
Creating joint effort and funding to address major concern;
Co-operating in conversations with relevant authorities and
*          improving chemical accident preparedness and response.
            They concluded that enterprises should prepared to response to emergencies because despite all efforts to avoid accidents, there must be possibilities of emergencies and accidents. Therefore, emergency plans should  be developed, including both an enterprise internal plan (on-sire emergency plan) which is generally the responsibility of the enterprises and external plan (off-site emergency plant) which is generally the responsibility of the public authorities. The two plans should be coordinated with each other in order to be able to efficiently and properly deal with possible accidents. Close co-operation between enterprises and public authorities is necessary both in establishing the plans and in relate training. There should also a cooperation with the public and stake holders.
            In case of an accident that is too big or difficult for the affected enterprises to handle, the resources of the enterprises located clode-by or enterprises with special qualification to assist should be used to mitigate the emergency. There should also possibilities to coordinate on a more general level between enterprises dealing with similar facilities and products. In this case, the aspects of consider are: sharing of equipment locally sharing of personal in formatting and expertise for limitation a local level and joint personnel, resources and equipment for mitigation of transport accidents. The initiative to coordinate and optimize resources could either come from the enterprises themselves, but would normally be co-ordinate by some community organization or public authority.
            Telos (2005) in his contribution said that each enterprises should have a system for internal reporting and dealing with all events which deviate from normal conditions and which could have adverse effects on safety, health, the environment or property (called “accident” for purpose of documentation) this is the basis from which enterprises can learn form experience to avoid repeating similar dangerous occurrences. In additons, events which actually lead to measurable consequences-damage to people, the environment or property-should all be reported and handled promptly and coefficient. It would obviously be the goal to have as few as possible of these kind of events.   
            Events which do not lead to any measurable consequences, but which could have resulted in consequences, had the circumstance been different (Near misses”) or other learning experience should also be reported and handled in a similar way. The objectives should also be to minimize such events however, efforts should be made to have as many of them as possible reported in order to learn experience. This is of a particular concern because there is the tendency not to report events when there are no consequences.



All Stake Holders Role
            For effective accident prevention, industries should be ready to cooperate with the community where hazardous installations are located. Communication and cooperation should be based on a policy openers, as well as the shared objective of reducing the likelihood of accident and mitigating the adverse affects that occur. One important aspect is that the potentially affected public should receive information needed to support prevention and preparedness objectives and should have the opportunity to participate in decision-making related to hazardous installations, as appropriate.
The role of industrial mangers and labour
*          All enterprises that produce, use, store or otherwise handle hazardous substances should undertake, in cooperation with other stakeholder the hazard identification and risk assessment needed for a complete understand of risks to employee, the public, the environment and property the event of an accident. Hazard identification and risk assessment should be taken from the earliest stages of design and construction, throughout operation and maintenance, and should address the possibilities of human or technological failure  as well as rleases resulting form matural disasters or deliberate acts. Such assessments should be repeated periodically and whenever there are significant modifications to the installation.
*          Another important role by industrial operators and labour is the “promotion of safety culture”. They should promote a safety culture that is known and accepted throughout the enterprises. For safety culture to be effective, it requires visible top-level management commitment and the support and participation of the employees.
Establish safety management systems and monitor/review their implantation. Managing hazardous installation effectively requires industrial managers to use appropriate technology and processes and well as establishing an effective organizational structures which will contribute in the reduction of accident. In order to ensure the adequate of safety management system, it is critical to have appropriate and effective review schemes to monitor the system.
Producers of equipment should try as much as possible utilize safer technology in designing and operating hazardous installation me application of this methodology will help to minimize or reduce the likelihood of accident and its consequences. Eg installations should take into an account the following, to the extent that they would reduce risks: Minimizing to the extent practical the  quantity of hazardous substances used; replacing hazardous substance with less hazardous ones; reducing operating pressure and/or temperatures; improving inventory control; and using simpler processes. This could be completed by the use of back-up system.
            Another important point in preventing accident is change management. The management of change should be the responsibility of top management in an organization. Any significant changes such as changes in process technology, staffing and procedures, as well as maintenance repairs, start-up and shutdown operations, increase the risk of accident. It is therefore particularly important to be aware of this and to take appropriate safety measure when significant changes are planed before they are implemented.
            Prepare for any accident that mighty occurred it is important to recognize that is not possible to eliminate risk of an accident. Therefore it is critical to have appropriate preparedness planning in order to minimize the likelihood and extent of any adverse effects on health, environment or property. This includes both on-site preparedness planning and contributing to off-site planning.
            Assist others to carry out their respective roles and responsibilities.
To this end, management should co-operate with al employees and their representatives, public authorities local communities and other members of the public. In addition management should strive other to assist enterprises (including supplier and customers) to meet appropriate safety standard.
*          4Work towards continues improvement. It is obvious that it is not possible to eliminate all risks of accident at hazardous installations. One goal should be to improve in the technology, management systems and staff skills in order to move closer toward the ultimate objective zero accidents. In this regard, management should seek to learn from past experiences with accident and near miss both within their own enterprises and at other enterprises.
Labour: In accident prevention, labour plays a very important role in making sure that they work in relatively safe working environment. The three major ways they can do this effectively are:
*          Act in accordance with the enterprises safety culture, safety procedures and training. In the discharge of their responsibilities, labour should comply with all the procedures and practices relating to accident prevention, preparedness and response, in accordance with the training instructions given by their employer. All employees(including contractors) should report to their supervisors any situation that they believe could present significant risk.
*          make every effort to be informed, and to provide information and feedback to management. It is important for all employees, including contractors to understand the risks in enterprises where they work, and to understand how to avoid creating or increasing the levels of risk. Labour should to the extent possible provide feedback to management concerning safety-related matters. In this regard, labour and their representatives should work together with management in the development and implementation of safety management system, including procedures for ensuring adequate education and training/retraining of employees labour and representatives should also have the opportunity to participate in monitoring and investigations  by the employer, or by the component authority, in connection with measures aimed at preventing, preparing for and responding to chemical accidents.
*          Be proactive in helping to inform and educate your community.
When employees are well educated at hazardous installation it can act as important safety ambassador within their community.
            Public authorities is also a very important stakeholder with the role of making the  necessary law that will grantee the safety of individuals. Some of the ways this could be down are:
*          seek to develop, enforce and continuously improve policies, regulations and practices. It is important for public authorities to establish policies, regulations and practices, and have mechanisms in place to ensure their enforcement. Public authorities should also regularly review and update, as appropriate, policies, regulations and practices. In this regard, public authorities should keep informed of and take into accouter relevant departments. These include changes in technology, business practices and levels of risks in their communities, as well as experience in implementing existing laws and accident case histories.
*          The next aspect is motivating stake holders to fulfill their roles and responsibilities.
            Public authority should use the inflencce to motivate other stakeholders to recognize the importance of accident prevention, preparedness’ and responses, and to take the appropriate steps to minimize=se the risks of accidents and this occurs.
Public authorities should also monitor the industries to ensure that risk are properly addressed.
Public authorities should establish mechanisms for monitoring hazardous installations to ensure that all the relevant laws and regulations are being followed, and that the cement of a safety management system are in place and functionary properly, taking into account the nature of the risk at the installations.
Help ensure that there is cooperation and communication among stakeholders. Public authorities have an important role in ensuring that appropriate information is provided to, and received by, all relevant stakeholders. They a have to educate the public concerning the installation of hazardous instrument so that they will understand what to do at any particular point in time especially in the event of any accident.
Share on Google Plus

Declaimer - MARTINS LIBRARY

The publications and/or documents on this website are provided for general information purposes only. Your use of any of these sample documents is subjected to your own decision NB: Join our Social Media Network on Google Plus | Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin

READ RECENT UPDATES HERE