Use info to improve workplace safety

ONCE AGAIN, the Jamaica Occupational Health and Safety Professionals Association (JOHSPA) joins with the International Labour Organization (ILO) in celebrating World Day for Safety and Health at Work. This year’s theme focuses on the need for proper systems of collection of occupational safety and health (OSH) data and the use of this data to improve workplace safety and health.

Jamaica currently does not have a standardised system of documenting OSH data. Although there is a system of reporting, many employers and employees do not comply because of fear that it will place their business in a bad light, and because there is no enforcement of the requirement to report. Having accurate data allows businesses, and Jamaica as a whole, to know their status so that performance can be correctly assessed. What cannot be measured cannot be improved. This is not unique to health and safety, as businesses regularly measure other indices of productivity. The long-overdue OSH Act was recently tabled in Parliament and will likely be passed soon. The Act mandates that businesses

report work-related fatalities, serious injuries and illnesses and dangerous incidents to the Ministry of Labour and that records of these notifiable incidents are kept. JOHSPA and other stakeholders must now insist on the enforcement of this system. We believe that without a programme of accountability, audit and continuous improvement, Jamaica will not realise its vision of being ‘the place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business’. DR SHARON EAST-MILES President Jamaica Occupational Health and Safety Professionals Association