SELAMAT DATANG SYAWAL, SELAMAT TINGGAL RAMDHAN ALMUBARAK

Besok kita akan menyambut hari kemenangan - Eidul Fitri. Hari kemenangan kerana berjaya mengawal nafsu yang sering mengajak kita melakukan sesuatu secara ekstrim. Semuga tarbiyah di madrasah ramadhan pada tahun ini dapat membentuk nafsu kita supaya dapat dikawal. Mengambil kesempatan di sini saya ingin mengucapkan Selamat hari raya Eidul Fitri kepada seluruh umat islam terutamanya pengunjung blog saya yang setia.
Salam hormat dari,
Dr. Aini Bin Hj. Murni, DP(USM) DSKP(UKM)
•Memetik kata-kata Persius dalam bahasa Latin:Sicre tuum nihil est nise te sicre hoc sciat alter: yang boleh diterjemah sebagai :"Ilmu pengetahuan anda tidak bermakna jika tidak ada orang yang mengetahuinya"
http://cendekiaohs.blogspot.com

HAZARD Part I

It is important to have a knowledge on Hazards if you really want to manage Safety and Health at workplace effectively.
What is Hazard?
The word Hazard is originated from Arabic -AZZAHR, means chance, luck.
Hazard is any thing that has inherent potential to cause HARM or DANGER to human’s health and safety, property and environment.
Generally, we can classified Hazard into Safety Hazard and Health Hazard.
Safety Hazard is a condition where harm to workers is immediate or of violent in nature which may result in injury,for instance Work at Height -if you fell down, it will result in acute injury or fatality. On other hand, Health hazard is a condition that can cause disease or illness, normally it take a period of time to develop. For example, if you are exposed to Benzene (which is carcinogenic chemical:classified as Class A carcinogenic by the Environmental Protection Agency), you may have Cancer of white blood cell (Leukemia) in many years time. However, health hazard also can ended up in acute consequence, for example in Acute Cyanide Poisoning.
How many Type of Hazards?
The type of Hazards are :
Health hazards:
1. Biological agent : Virus, Bacteria,Fungus
2. Chemical agent: Organic solvents, Heavy metal such as Plumbum(Lead),Nickel etc
3. Ergonomics : Manual handling, Computer work etc
4. Physical Agent: Radiation, Noise, Vibration etc
5. Psychosocial : Stress, shift work
*mnemonic: BioChemist Examines Plumbum PoiSoning
Safety Hazards:
1. Mechanical/machinery : cuts, entanglement
2. Height/Gravity
3. Electrical
4. Fire/Explosion
5. Violence
6. Confine Space

 

SAFETY AND HEALTH EFFECT OF HAZE

HAZE is affecting our country again. Almost every year we confront with HAZE - a consequence of human activity of extreme burning of forest and uncontrolled open burning. Science and technology still unable to prevent it from occur and recur. It signify the limitation of the science and technology, the most we can do is to emulate the natural process - producing artificial rain.
What is HAZE? How it affects our health and safety?
It is composed of solid or particulate matter, gases and liquid droplets which are collectively only visible to the naked eye. Individually it is invisible.With increase in humidity, these particles grow in size making the HAZE become more dense and affecting the distance visibility of the surrounding.This may cause accident between land and river or sea transport.
The HAZE usually originated from a source of open burning. In our case, the open burning activity in Indonesia is the main culprit. Inter-monsoon wind brought the components of haze from these sources to our places.
Gas components of the haze - Sulphur dioxide and Nitrogen Oxide - when in contact with the mucus membranes of our upper respiratory tract or conjunctiva will produce weak acid in the form of sulphic and nitric acid. These two acid will cause local irritation effect result in conjunctivitis and upper respiratory tract inflammation.
So, now this explained the rising numbers of these two cases during HAZE throughout our country.
Surprisingly, cases of ASTHMA are also increasing according to the press statement from Ministry of Health. Studies on Haze by Dr JeyaIndran, our local expert in Respiratory Medicine, in 1991 when our country was affected by HAZE for 160 days, showed significant rise in PM10 but no concomitant rise in cases of acute asthma. His study on HAZE in 1997 also revealed no acute episodes significant rise of asthma despite of increased in API reading. So the report of increasing in Asthma cases during current HAZE should be analysed properly inorder to show its significant.
What should we do? When API reading more that 200,it indicates a very unhealthy condition because of the risk of normal individual suffering the ill effects of HAZE i.e. Upper respiratory tract infections and conjunctivitis - the following advice should be followed:
1. Stay indoors especially to HIGH RISK people - Elderly, Children and those who suffers from Heart and Lung diseases.
2. Drink a lot of water (For muslim, fasting month prevents this)
3. Wash your face frequently
4. If you need to be outdoor especially for outdoor workers, you need to wear an appropriate MASK equivalent to 3M 8710 model (Not the one that was distributed free at the moment). Ordinary mask cannot prevent you from inhaling the components of HAZE, it only gives a false sense of security.
In Kuching, it was raining for the past 3 days, although it reduced the API reading but the haze is still there.

Testing using MacJournal

I am trying MacJournal.
Hope it is working smoothly.
With kind regards,
Dr Aini Bin Hj Murni, MD PGDOH
http://cendekiaohs.blogspot.com

Awareness and Knowledge on OSHA 1994

I asked my wife who is currently doing her part-time BEd (TESL) did a survey on awareness and knowledge on OSHA 1994 amongst her course-mates. We used  questionnaires developed by UKM's research team headed by Prof. Dr. KG Rampal, a well known Malaysian Professor of Occupational Medicine.
The following are our findings:
Only 58.3% of respondents had heard or knew about OSHA 1994 as compared to Prof. Rampal's findings -60.5% of 2577 respondents.
87.5% of our respondents mistaken OSHA 1994 with SOCSO Act 1969, while  87.4% of them said OSHA 1994 was enforced by Ministry of Health, Malaysia. 87% of our respondents knew that employers could be charged in court but only 48.5% of them knew that they too could be charged in court for not complying with the act. Our findings is almost similar to Prof.Rampal's findings. 
Although our sample is only 24 but in view of their level of education is STPM and above and majority of them are working with public and private sectors, it is quiet alarming to know the findings.
After OSHA 1994 already enacted for more than 10 years, it is quiet surprising that the target population of workforce are still not heard or knew about OSHA 1994. As OSH Professional we are responsible to disseminate the awareness and knowledge of Safety and Health and its law to the workforce.
Let us increase our effort......
How do we expect the improvement of the level of Safety and Health at workplace, if the worker never heard about the law?