Experts call for outdoor work ban due to heat

THE government should ban working outdoors during the hottest part of the day, experts have said.

The warning was issued as temperatures reached as high as 43C in inland areas of the TRNC this week.

Occupational Health and Safety Experts Association president Güvenç Yüksel stated that “attention deficit” due to extreme heat is the “biggest cause” of workplace accidents.

The Labour and Social Security Ministry should “legally prohibit working between 11am and 2-3pm in this hot weather” he said.

Mr Yüksel emphasised that due to the “extreme increase in temperatures in our country”, it is necessary to “change working hours, take more frequent breaks and increase fluid consumption in order to protect the health and safety of workers”.

Working conditions during the heat “should not be left to the employer’s discretion but should be regulated and announced by the Labour and Social Security Ministry” he said.

The hot weather affects construction workers working outside, as well as delivery people and employees of other sectors who do not have a “suitable working environment” even though they work indoors, for example bakers and cooks who have to work in front of an open flame in the heat, Mr Yüksel noted.

Stating that safe and healthy conditions should be created in order to ensure the protection of workers, Mr Yüksel said that regulations should be created not only for workers in the private sector but also for those in the public sector.

“In terms of occupational health and safety, our country lags far behind in comparison to European countries and the necessary steps should be taken in this regard,” he said.

“A person who is faced with excessive heat will first suffer from attention deficit. If a worker works on the ninth or 10th floor [of a building site], they may lose their balance and if they use a cutting machine, they may injure themselves or someone else.

“In addition the worker may faint, their blood pressure and glucose level may drop. They could have a heart attack or worse, they could fall, hit their head and die.”

The state should regulate working hours and increase workers’ breaks and fluid consumption and “if necessary, sanctions should be applied” to enforce such rules.

Both “employers and the state should take the necessary steps for a safe, healthy and comfortable environment” Mr Yüksel added.

“Even if this does not become a legal obligation, it is important for employers to take the matter seriously.”

Internal medicine specialist Dr Altay Taşyürek said that people who work outdoors in hot weather are especially at risk of sunstroke and may experience “vomiting, headache, low blood pressure, fever and many other health problems”.

In order to prevent these health problems, Dr Taşyürek recommends not going out between 11am and 4pm during extreme heat.

He pointed out that the necessary precautions should be “taken seriously” and that people working in indoor areas but in hot conditions “can also suffer from heat stroke”.

“Those who are indoors may have the opportunity to cool off, but those who work outside are under direct sunlight. These people need to be protected,” he stressed.

Meanwhile People’s Party leader and former Deputy PM Kudret Özersay, writing on social media on Wednesday, said that Article 36 of the Work Act gives ministers the power to order some or all workplaces to close from midday to 4pm, between the dates of May 15 and September 30, by publishing a notice in the Official Gazette.

“There is an urgent need for a regulation to be made on the topic of working hours for people who work in the open air, especially those who work on building sites,” he wrote.

“These people should NOT be made to work between certain hours. Decisions like this have been taken and implemented in the past.”

Dr Özersay called on Tourism Minister Fikri Ataoğlu, who is also the Acting Labour and Social Security Minister, to “take the necessary steps for the health and safety of these people”.