Significance of Leadership for Safety in Licensee Organizations: Self-Regulation

Yesterday, I listened to a seminar through virtual mode on the above topic. The message conveyed through all presentations was good. The presentations were also interesting and captured my attention. I attended a similar seminar a few years ago also. 

The important points to take home are as below:

1. Leadership is to be exhibited at all levels to ensure safety.
2. Self-regulation is important and is helpful to growing organizations.
3. Organizations shall have self-imposed goals and should work for them (self-regulation), rather than looking to the regulators to identify their drawbacks (here, third-party audits will be helpful, if the organizations do not have the competency to identify their problems).
4. The Decision-making process is an important activity to identify and correct the situation before it escalates.
5. We can't sit quietly by taking pride in our past successes. Our past weaknesses are there still and can endanger us.
6. Self-regulation through safety culture will help in safety management and lead the organizations to a successful path.

EHS article on, how to identify fake N95 masks

https://www.ehstoday.com/ppe/article/21155518/how-to-identify-fake-n95-masks?oly_enc_id=1936G3569489I9F

High levels of PM2.5 and PM10 during early hours - morning exercisers to protect themselves

It is reported that particulate matter PM2.5 and PM10 levels are very high even during early hours, particularly in winter. This is when there are no activities like construction or movement of vehicles. It is stated that condensation with low temperature leads to the formation of tiny particulate matter which suspended in air is leading to airborne matter.  High dust levels can also be due to the settling of fine particulate matter that got suspended during day time from various activities. Depending upon the size and wind speed, the particles are either carried from other places or taking the time. Temperature inversion can be another factor in delaying the settling of dust particles.

I too observed the air quality index levels in my mobile, which continued to be high in the night and early hours, though, not high compared to daytime levels. 

Another observation is the formation of a fine dust layer on the vehicles parked in garages and inside the houses after a few hours, even after wiping the surfaces in the night.

This indicates poor air that may not be suitable for us even in early morning hours and we can't go for outdoor exercises, particularly in winter. We may also get into respiratory problems by inhalation of condensed moisture as particulate matter. Maybe we have to cover the face with masks to avoid inhalation of harmful matter, not thinking that it is safe as there is no vehicle movement on the roads.

Importance of readily available data for preventing disasters - an article

Recently, I came across an article from Kinsmen Group, as given below. It discussed the importance of readily available data on workplace activities and incidents to prevent workplace disasters and protect the employees. It is called smart data, in the news item. 

Following are some of the issues and observations made (data seems to be for USA):

1. As per OSHA and Labour department, in the year 2019, more than 5000 persons died 9,00,000 were injured at workplace.
2. Companies spend an average USD 7,500 for each lost-time workplace injury (we can call this as direct cost). Other costs consist of replacement of damaged equipment, reconstruction of facilities, compensation, etc. (As per theory, direct cost is only like a tip of the iceberg. And, cost of preventing an accident will be only about one fourth of the direct cost).
3. As per National Safety Council, cost of workplace injuries in the year 2018 was USD 170 billion.
4. Each fatality costs USD 1.0 million in medical costs, employer costs, and wage losses
5. In a fatal fire and explosion incident, it seems, the emergency personnel do not have information of chemicals involved, otherwise, they could have saved the lives. 
6. Digitization and availability of data easily is not yet compulsory by many certification agencies. Organizations follow data retrieval in general age old methods like physical search instead of going for easy methods by using the computer/cloud technology/internet
7. Data should be latest

Many of us definitely would have spent a lot of time in search of some information. It is my personal experience that on most of the occasions, I spent more than two hours to retrieve, and sometimes more than one person was engaged for information retrieval. And, on some occasions, I didn't find what I want. Availability of signed information will help us to support what remember/believe and use it to convince others for implementation of safety or whatever we would like to.

Digitizing the records with a provision to search will be helpful for us and our future generation. Some believe digitization means scanning the documents. But scanning without search option makes it useless. It is a primitive form. Instead of paper search, we have to search in computer page by page. Indexing these types of scanned pages may make life somewhat better. But, if scanning of documents is in readable text form to enable search with key words, and is available in encrypted form in cloud, like dropbox, mega, onedrive, pcloud, etc and is accessible with password protection to prevent unauthorized access, it will help a lot for productive use. 

Searchable scanned records helped us greatly in the analysis of similar incidents and find suitable solutions to prevent recurrence of the incidents for a safe workplace  

Updating of data is a continuous process. 

Knowledge management is very important and critical to ensure safe productivity. World renowned safety professional Dr Trevor Kletz stated in one of his books (What Went Wrong) that incidents keep repeating either in the same or different similar organizations. We have to learn from them and implement measures to prevent recurrence.

Another safety professional Mr O.P.Kharbanda stated in a booklet about Bhopal accident, that Safety is not costly. In fact, it is free. What we need is the will to implement. 

In one of the investigation reports, EPA made an observation which states, it is not the lack of knowledge that is responsible for the accident. It is the lack of use of the available information that is responsible for the accident.

How we can get the information at first place. If it is made available in a readily searchable form and is known the personnel how to use it, then this information management will help to achieve what we intended to.

Qualified technologies and personnel should be assigned for this and definitely organizations will reap the benefits from this.

https://www.prweb.com/releases/two_strategies_help_prevent_workplace_disasters_protect_employees_with_smart_data/prweb17681313.htm

Telangana State Disaster Response and Fire Services (TSDRFS) Department - achievements

The department during the year 2020 attended 7,899 calls as per the data published in its site. 

Telangana State Disaster Response and Fire Services Department

With its dedicated efforts, it saved 1005 lives and saved property worth Rs 960 crores. 

During the last seven years, it saved 2,301 lives and property worth Rs 4,667 crore in more than 62,000 calls attended.

Majority of the fires took place in residences, factories, storage yards, etc. Two major reasons for the fires are electrical short circuit and careless smoking habits. 

As is a common feature, many times, the approach of emergency services to the fire site will be delayed due to traffic, encroachments, parking of vehicles on the roads,  etc. Many do not keep parking areas within the buildings. Instead, public areas are used for parking. The entrance steps and/or ramps to many buildings will be on the road, thereby reducing the road width. 

When buildings collapse due to fire or other reasons, because of above reasons, the available road will be filled with debris or parked vehicles prevent approach of fire services and this makes the fire fighting / rescue task very difficult. 

National Building Code gives the requirements clearly with sufficient offsets / margins. Similarly, while seeking approvals from local government authorities, these margins may be shown in the drawing, but when comes to subsequent construction, hardly any space is kept free.

But, who will suffer. These building owners and tenants only will suffer in an emergency due to restricted access. But, the department and police will receive flak for not reaching in time or not able to extinguish / contain the fire.

Inspite of all these limitations, still the above numbers speak the invaluable contribution. And, one should not forget the risk taken by them. While risking their lives, they struggle to protect the lives and property. One may comment that they take salary, but who will risk their life for salary. It is their selfless dedicated action in the service of the public, that needs appreciation.

Death of a person due to swollen abdomen - cirrhosis

Recently, there was a death of an aged person (> 85 years) in our family. He was in the hospital on two occasions within a month before the death. He had a history of cellulitis to lower legs, with one leg is more severe than the other. Otherwise, perfectly healthy. After observing fluid bleeding from one lower leg through a node, swelling of feet, and slight fever, he was taken to the hospital and was admitted for investigations and treatment. With bed rest and treatment, the swelling has come down and was taken back home with prescribed bed rest and medication for home treatment. Doctors have informed that water from the abdomen may lead to chest and heart complications.  He was alright, only that he was unable to sit for long periods and started sleeping for longer hours. After about two weeks, with the complaint of chest pain, he was again admitted. This time he experienced breathing problems and could not take food. Blood pressure was controlled with medicine. Food was given through a tube inserted. After ten days in the hospital, he slipped to unconsciousness, had heavy and noisy breathing. And, died within 24 hours of going into unconscious state.

The reason understood was that the swelling of the abdomen is because of cirrhosis which was caused in turn by hepatitis C. However due to age factor, transplantation of the liver could not be thought off. 

Some useful links to the above observations are given below.

https://www.healthline.com/health/abdomen-swollen#treatment

https://www.healthline.com/health/cirrhosis#prevention

https://www.healthline.com/health/abdominal-tap#outlook

Similar number of covid cases - then and now - change of fear factor

Present day's covid cases are similar to those about a year ago. Even lesser, earlier. But, everyone was scared. Everyone suspected even their neighbors and stopped communicating, stopped exchanging the things that were practice before.

But, with similar cases now, hardly, anybody cares. Even the basic best practices like wearing a mask, social distancing, and sanitizer use has come down. Many are not following these practices. 

With respect to numbers, more deaths took place in road accidents, medical reasons (other than covid), etc. But, we were scared to covid and now it has become common to accept as others.

Same is true in industry. We cared less for accidents of repetitive nature, but glorified those which may not happen again. Even today we blame chemical and nuclear industries, citing Bhopal and Chernobyl mishaps, but take less care in activities like driving, construction, etc. We care more to protect that do not have value more than human life, like memorabilia, vehicles, etc.

It's all in our mind.  Though value of life is same in all cases, our perception makes us accord a different weightage, case to case.

We can truly improve and ensure safety only when we give same importance in all activities, and not accepting any unsafe act or condition.

Work for improvement - not for records - it will follow