Why is it a must to prevent Accidents?
There are three main reasons for preventing accidents and ill-health.
Moral / Humane - No-one comes to work to be injured or killed
Cost - Accidents cost organizations money.
Legislation - Organizations have a legal obligation. Ex.
Piper Alpha – 167 people killed – estimated to have cost over £2 billion including £746 million in direct insurance payouts. OHS History
Agricoloa (1494-1555)
He noted the need to
provide ventilation for miners“Some mines are so dry that they are entirely devoid of water and this dryness causes the workmen even greater harm,
for the dust, which is stirred and beaten up by digging, penetrates
into the windpipe and lungs, and produces difficulty in breathing and the disease the Greeks call asthma. If the dust has corrosive qualities, it eats away the lungs and implants consumption in the body. In the Carpathian mountains women are found who
have married seven husbands, all of whom this terrible consumption has carried off to a premature death.”
OHS History
Bernardino Ramazzini (1633-1714)
Italian physician, known as the patron saint of industrial medicine. His book,
The Diseases of Workmen, described the symptoms of mercury and lead poisoning and issues with silica.
Advised physicians to learn about occupational diseases by studying the work environment, and exhorted them to always ask their patients Of what trade are you?”
