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Hi all, If you are planning to run a de-addiction program in your organization, you may be in need of a de-addiction form. You can download the form below.
Hi all, One of the core job of a Factory Medical Officer is to complying with the applicable legal requirements as mentioned in Factories Act 1948, Karnataka Factories Rules 1969, Mines Act 1952, Mines Rules 1955, Biomedical waste rules etc... In order to monitor the compliance systematically, I have made an monitoring sheet. Please download below.
Hi all, As per rules, we need to display a leaflet near all the First Aid Boxes. I have prepared a leaflet. You can please download it from the attachments.
Hi al,
In many occupational health centers, there is no proper infrastructure
(audiometric soundbooth)for conducting agood quality audiometry test. KUDUwave
Audiometers eliminates need of an audiometric sound booth. The headset has an
inbuilt soundproof attachment. It gives quality results.
Contact for KUDUwave audiometry services
Sai Prasad G
Director
Hearing Health Care Clinic AS
Bangalore
9964497543 http://www.hearingc.com/
If any employees has BPP Vertigo, it is dangerous for him to work at height. So, this has to be ruled ot by conducting Dix-Hallpike test. If test found positive, it is better to avoid him for work at height.
Hi all, It is important for us to maintain a correctly working medical instruments to give better health services. So, calibration is necessary. I am listing few agencies who are doing medical instruments calibration in Bangalore. If you know any other agencies, please mention in the comment sections and also, please review their services.
1. TBS INDIA Telematic & Biomedical Services Pvt Ltd. 5th Floor, Arden Fair Opp Benniganahalli Ring Road Flyover, Pai Layout, Near Tin Factory, Old Madras Road, Bangalore Karnataka 560016 India Tel: 080 – 40545050 , 080 - 4113 4491 Fax: +91 80 4054 5055 Email: info@tbs-india.com Visit us at : http://www.tbs-india.com/contactus
2. Helix Private Limited #878, 17th Cross, 9th B Main Rd, Prasanti Nagar, ISRO Layout, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560078 Phone: 080-26860687 / 89 Fax: 080-26860692 E-mail: mail@helixindia.com Visit us at : www.helixindia.com
3. TRANSCAAL ENGINEERS INDIA PVT LTD REGD : OFF.Building No.96/1-1, Shubhashree, 1st floor, Near post Office, East Park Road, 9th cross, Between Sampige Road & Margosa Road, Malleshwaram,Bangalore-560003 P: 080-23362266 Visit us at : http://www.tepl.info/
Hi all,
Prevention is better than cure. So, lets share view on adult vaccines which are
helpful in industrial workers. Few of the vaccines which are in regular used
are:
1. Tetanus vaccine for all
2. Hepatitis B vaccine for health workers
3. Typhoid vaccines for canteen workers
Please share your suggestion for any additional vaccinations.
Hi all, Occupational health is mainly focussed on preventive & promotive health. For prevention of a diseases, we need to know lots of trends and other data. We can manage these easily with Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Software. There are few EMR software available for occupational health management. If you are using any of them please post a review of them.
1. CHIRAYU: Comprehensive Occupational Health Management Software by RASS technologies.
Hi all, I am posting common tests to be conducted for various categories of workers during pre-employment medical examination. Share your views please. You can download the copy in attachment.
Periodical medical examination provides the health status of employees in an
organization but its usefulness cannot be utilized to the full extent without
the knowledge of the work environment. Moreover, periodical medical examination
results will be normal initially due to the slow progress of occupational
diseases. Therefore relying completely on medical examination reports is not
enough in the quest for the prevention of occupational diseases. The situation
calls for a direct assessment of the workplace by an occupational health
physician to anticipate and early detection of occupational diseases even
before it starts appearing in the periodical medical examination reports. The
process of direct assessment of workplace in an industry can be termed as the Industrial
survey.
Industrial survey and periodical medical examination should always go hand in
hand, without the support of each other the outcome of whole occupational
health services will not bear fruit.
Once the industrial survey is conducted, based on observations, recommendations
are framed for eliminating window for occupational diseases. As mentioned
elsewhere the implementation of recommendations again calls for the integrated
approach from various disciplines of the organization for an effective outcome.
Below mentioned are the general guidelines about what to look for during the
industrial survey:
1. Study of the department:Understanding the process / Chemicals used /
raw materials / finished products / byproducts.
2. Observations
a.
General view b. Levels of chemicals in air /dust in air/ Gases in air/ Noise/Heat c. Working condition of employees
i.
Working hours
ii. Sickness Absenteeism
iii. Overtime duty
iv. Stress
v. Food quality /canteen quality
vi. Availability drinking water
vii. Shift duties
viii. Actions taken for the already existing occupational diseases
ix. Abiding by Karnataka Factories Rules1969/ Factories Act 1948 with
respect to occupational diseases
d. Identification
of possible occupational diseases
e. Health records correlation with work environment
f. Ergonomics with respect to body posture during work
g. Awareness of occupational diseases among employees
h. Classes conducted for creating awareness among employees
i.
Occupational diseases and its prevention
ii. Health Education
iii. First Aid Training
No activity is complete without an analysis of results and
applying it for the improvement. Periodical medical examination data should be
thoroughly analyzed and compared with different departments, age group,
process, socioeconomic background etc… to arrive at a community
diagnosis.
A community is a cluster of people with at least one common
characteristic feature (department, designation, age group, socioeconomic
status, type of job, geographic location, country etc...) A group of people
with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger
society comprises a community.
Community diagnosis generally refers to the identification
and quantification of health problems in a community as a whole
Importance of community diagnosis
1. It helps in finding common problems (occupational
diseases) in a community which in turn can be used effectively to prevent
occupational diseases.
2. Treating community as a whole is more effective in
prevention of occupational diseases rather than treating on individual basis,
because, while treating the affected individual, the remaining members of the
same community will be having exposure to the same risk factors as the affected
individual is and ultimately they too will be affected by the same disease.
E.g. Dust prone areas like RMHS department is
having high levels of coal dust in the air and the employees working there are
having respiratory problems and diagnosed to be having anthracosis. Corrective
measures will be; a) As per individual case
management: The affected person is shifted to non-dusty areas, medical
treatment is given and a new employee is posted in his place as a replacement.
Co-workers and the new employee remain exposed to high coal dust. Eventually,
they also get the same disease. b) As per community approach:
The particular part of RMHS department is considered as a risk zone and all the
employees working in the area are considered “at risk”. So measures will be
initiated to protect all the employees by implementing engineering control to
reduce the coal dust level in the air, providing proper PPE’s and making strict
guidelines regarding the protection of workers. Meanwhile, treatment is also
started for those who are already affected. So here both the affected and
at-risk people are protected. Thereby no new case of the disease will occur. In
medical terms, both prevalence and incidence are reduced. Therefore making community
diagnosis and community approach while treating is of paramount importance for
preventing occupational diseases.
3. Helps in preventing a healthy individual in the same
community from being affected by the same risk factor.
4. Helps in secondary and tertiary prevention of those who
are already affected.
5. It can be used for primordial prevention when an expansion
of the plant is planned.
Once the analysis is completed a community diagnosis is made
and recommendations are framed. These should be communicated to concerned
authorities for initiation of actions to prevent occupational diseases.
Communication is one of the most important steps for effective practicing of
occupational health as the entire concept of occupational health revolves
around the integrated approach.
The periodical medical examination is one of the most
important activities of occupational health services after the employee joins
the organization and utmost importance must be given for this key activity.
It serves many purposes;
1. For early detection of occupational diseases and deviation
in the health of employees.
2. To find out the prevalence and incidence of occupational
diseases
3. Trend analysis of health reports helps in identifying the
cause of occupational diseases and thereby helps in framing recommendation to
initiate preventive measures. Prevention may be at primary secondary or
tertiary level.
4. Occupational health physician gets a chance to meet each
and every employee in the organization. This meeting can be used for imparting
health education and creating awareness about occupational diseases and its prevention
at the individual level.
5. To measure the outcome of implemented programmes to
protect and promote employee health.
6. As a part of complying with statutory requirement as per
Karnataka factory rules 1969 88-L and Indian factories act 1948 41-C
Choosing tests, frequency and employee group
1. Hazardous substances and processes must be identified and
studied in detail before selecting investigations to be done for the employees.
2. Thus identified tests must be conducted for all the
employees in the organization irrespective of their exposure to risk. This will
help in deciding whether the identified risk is causing occupational diseases
or an occupational disease is caused by specific risk in doubt. If it is not
possible to conduct all the tests for all employees in the organization, a fair
number of control group must be used.
3. The periodical medical examination is to be conducted once
in six months for employees working in hazardous factories and once in a year
in case of nonhazardous factories as per Karnataka factory’s rules 1969 88-L.
Hazardous factories are defined in schedule 2 of Indian factories act 1948.
Examinations may have to be conducted at more frequent intervals if the
occupational health physician feels so.
Thus obtained medical data is put into the analysis to find
out the health status of employees and for framing recommendations to prevent
occupational diseases if any.
Every
employee must undergo a pre-employment medical examination before joining the
organization, as it serves two very important purposes namely,
1. To
place the right man for the right job
2.
Baseline medical data collected during the pre-employment
medical examination will be compared to the data obtained during his stay in
the organization for early detection of deviation from health.
Physical
examination and battery of investigations are performed to assure the right man
for the right job. Ideally, assessing fitness should be inclusive in nature
rather than exclusion. While deciding a candidate’s fitness for a job, two
factors are taken into consideration:
1.
Long-term view – To protect employees from acquiring
occupational diseases during their long-term stay in the organization.
2.
Short-term view – To ensure the safety of the
employee from day one after he joins the organization.
Many
organizations give much importance to short-term view and completely neglect
the long term view, thereby resulting in exposing the employees to various
occupational diseases, which may prove fatal for employees, great financial
burden and productivity loss for the organization.
Hazards
existing at workplace needs to be identified and working environment is to be
assessed by an occupational health physician to decide the nature of
investigations to be conducted to assess the fitness of the desired candidate
for that job.
Number
and nature of tests will vary according to the working environment, work nature
and the candidate himself.
Thus the
identified tests will serve as a basis for screening purposes.
Screening
a candidate will give three different outcomes while deciding a candidate’s
fitness
•
Fit: Those who are through with the screening tests and physical
examination will be considered fit for the ‘particular’ job.
• Temporary
unfit: Those who are not able to clear screening medical examination
and tests are referred to a concerned specialist for further evaluation and a
detailed report is obtained regarding a medical diagnosis, underlying pathology,
and its severity. Based on the report, if the occupational health physician
feels a candidate has a reversible medical condition which may be cured on its
own or by medical intervention, he considers the candidate in temporary unfit
state and reviews the candidate after a stipulated time or upon completion of
treatment of the medical condition. If the candidate is already indulged in
work, he may be asked to refrain from work even before the specialist opinion
is taken, if the occupational health specialist feels so.
• Unfit: certificate
for a particular job will be issued, if the occupational health physician feels
that, the candidate or co-workers will be at risk if the candidate is allowed
to work because of his prevailing medical condition. An occupational health
physician is empowered to issue an unfit certificate or seek a specialist
opinion. If the candidate is already indulged in work, he may be asked to
refrain from work even before the specialist opinion is taken if the
occupational health physician feels so.
The
Concept of screening in pre-employment medical examination
Pre-employment
medical examination basically screens the population for a specific job from
the general population, so the nature of examinations and investigations should
be more sensitive than specific. So the result of filtered out candidates may
contain false positive but filtered in candidate should never be a false
negative. Screening tests should be chosen in such a way that, it should ensure
efficient filtering out the “not-so-fit” candidates rather than letting in the
“may-be-fit” candidates. And filtered out candidates from screening tests are
subjected to further investigations and specialist opinion, to justify or to
nullify the decision of making him unfit for the job.
All organizations are not the same. Each and every
organization have different types of raw materials, finished products,
byproducts, effluents, processes, employees, administrators, occupational
diseases, spoken language, working culture etc.… As the whole idea of
occupational health revolves around integrated approach, it is important for an
occupational health specialist to understand the various factors mentioned
above before making any major change.
Apart from that, from a technical point of view, it is
important for an occupational health physician to understand the various
processes, raw materials, finished products, byproducts, and effluents, for
identifying hazards prevailing in work environment thereby planning for
relevant investigations to be conducted during the pre, periodical and
post-employment medical examination for framing recommendations to prevent
occupational diseases.
Also, it is impossible for an occupational health physician
to analyze, make a community diagnosis and frame recommendations without the
knowledge of shop floor activities, processes, raw materials, byproducts,
finished products, and effluents.
Therefore all occupational health physicians must undergo a
detailed induction programme to get the basic idea of the organization and shop
floor activities and chemical compounds used.
With the basic knowledge during the induction programme, an
occupational health physician conducts industrial surveys at regular intervals
to understand the work environment, its implications in causing the
occupational diseases and framing recommendations.
For every organization setting the goal is of prime
importance. Without setting a goal it is impossible to remain focused for a
long time. The goal will be the ultimate and ideal situation to strive for, for
which each and every person in the organization should share, understand and
strive towards a common goal.
Below can be our defined goal and aims for the occupational
medicine wing of the organization:
Goal- Betterment of health of employees all across the
organization
Aim – Prevention of occupational diseases and Health
Promotion
Once being defined as goal and aims, it implies that the
entire activities of the occupational medicine wing will be planned in such a
manner that each and every activity will lead to achieving the same. Objectives
are defined from time to time to achieve the goal.
Goal mentioned here will be a continuous process and will
never be completed at any point of time. Only constant improvements are
considered as the department or organization is moving towards the right
direction. And achieving objectives can also be considered in the same
fashion.
As the goal is continuous in nature, which is achieved by
many means and basically it will be the result of an integrated approach from
various departments of the organization as discussed in the previous chapter,
we restrict ourselves to medical means of achieving it and supporting others
whenever necessary. Hence we mainly consider prevention of occupational health
diseases and promotion of health is a way of contributing to it and set the
same as our aim.
World Health Organization (WHO) definition of health,
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social
well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. Therefore
Occupational health can be considered as maintaining the highest degree of the
physical, mental and social well-being of workers in any occupation according
to the International labor organization (ILO).
It is clear from the ILO definition that, occupational health
cannot be achieved only by means of physical well-being. Mental and social
well-being also bears an equal weightage in deciding the person’s health, which
breaks the myth that, health as an isolated entity exclusively confined to
doctors. This extends the responsibility to other equally important disciplines
in the organization. On the whole, maintaining the health of employees at
workplace calls for what is called as the integrated approach for an
effective way to achieve occupational health.
Integrated approach
While working for achieving occupational health in an
organization through an integrated approach; occupational medicine,
occupational safety, occupational hygiene, and administrative departments play
an equally vital role in decision making and anchoring, while all others remain
actively participated and contribute. Thus the health of the organization is a
reflection of collective contribution, knowledge, and attitude of each and
every person in the organization, though the onus, success or failure lies on
anchoring departments due to their vital role of coordination, persuasion and
providing resources. The interdisciplinary concept for occupational health
makes various departments in the organization to intersect at various points on
the way to achieve occupational health instead of running parallel.
Hi all, If you are working in mines in India, you need to give certificate of fitness in Form-O after Pre-employment or Periodical medical examination. You can download the Form-O below.
Hi all, Those who are working in mines in India must know about the Mines Act 1952 & Mines Rules 1955. Please download the pdf format of the same here in the attachments.