My New Reference Book

I ordered this Oxford Handbook of Occupational Health, from PageOne Bookstore in Singapore. Its price is SGD78.52. This book is a newcomer to the oxford handbook series.

This book provides a comprehensive summary of the theory and practice of occupational health. This handbook contains 12 Sections as follows:

1. Occupational hazards

2. Occupational Diseases

3. Occupational Health Practice

4. Fitness for work

5. Occupational Health law

6. Occupational Hygiene

7. Toxicology

8. Epidemiology in occupational health

9. Environmental Medicine

10. Safety science

11. Practical procedures

12. Emergencies in occupational health

Appendices

I found this book is very handy and portable. In every chapter of each sections, there are a list of references.

FYI : I found this very good electronic booklet entitiled " Smart Guide To Start Business" published by DOSH, Malaysia. Click on the title to download your copy.

HEALTH Talk at ASSAR Senari Group (ASG)

Today, ASSAR Senari Group(ASG) Sarawak, the owner of Independence Oil Termional(IOT) invited me to give a health talk on 'Chemical Hazards' in conjunction with their HSSE Week. About 20 audiences attended the talk.

In my presentation, I started by informing the audience that everyday, thousand of chemicals are used in our workplace, home and environment. Chemical hazards is common hazards found at workplace and every worker is exposed to it. I stressed that we have no choice except to continue the battle proactively to protect our health from the effect of hazardous chemicals.

To help the audience in understanding the chemical hazards, I divided my health talk in three(3) short chapters :

Chapter One : Understanding chemical hazards: Hazardous chemicals and how it enters and effects our body

Chapter Two: Understanding the Malaysian Law pertaining to Chemical hazards

Chapter Three: Control the chemical hazards in workplace

In summary, I told the audience the following most important steps in fighting chemical hazards:

1. Awareness and Knowledgeable on chemicals used in workplace : read the Material safety Data Sheet (MSDS)

2. Practice Personal Hygiene

3. Perform Industrial Hygiene requirement as mentioned in OSHA 1994 and FMA 1967

4. Go for health and medical surveillance regularly or annually

KUMON & ERGONOMICS CONCEPT

This evening I went to KUMON Centre in Kuching City, operated by a wife of a doctor, attending their free preview on KUMON method in teaching mathematic.

At the centre, I saw a very interesting poster of KUMON concept on teaching which I managed to take the photo using my Nokia E71. The quality of the image is not that good or less ergonomcis due to my shaking hand.

But in this posting, I would like to share this KUMON's concept on teaching :

Let Fit the shoe to the foot rather than fit the foot to the shoe. In another word, this concept if we apply to workplace is similar to ergonomics approach.

ERGONOMICS PART 7

ERGONOMICS RISK FACTORS (ERF)

ERF arises due to poor design of the workstation and job. There are 7 ERFs found in the workplace namely
1. Force or Workload
2. Frequency of the job
3. Awkward posture during the job
4. Static position
5. Lack of Recovery
6. Contact stress
7. Vibration
Study done by NIOSH,US found that 3 Risk Factors above (1,2 &3) are consistently found in precipitating musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs).

Health Talk on Ergonomics at Proton Edar Sdn Bhd

On 21st February 2009, Proton Edar Sdn Bhd Kuching Office, invited me to give a talk on Ergonomics in colloboration of their Health,Safety and Environment(HSE) Week. Around 100 employees attended the talk. I chose 'Ergonomics & Productivity' as the title of my talk. In Act 1(introduction) of my talk, I stressed that in global economic competition, maintaining and maximising productivity is a must for the survival of any organisation. Workers as the primary tool of business play an important role in organisation's productivity. However, in many organisations, workers' health and safety is always under threat in the effort to achieve maximum productivity. Productivity can only be maintained and maximised by protecting the health and safety of the workers. To achieve this, all organisations must implement ergonomics program or approach in their workplace in order to maintain and maximise their productivity. Ergonomics approach means fitting the work environments and the job to the workers capability.