Presentation by dr Odile Frank of Public Service International at the WHO/TNO/Dutchgovernment Congres 'Connecting Health and Labour' 29 - 1 December 2012

1. Workers, occupational health and
safety and primary health care
Health Services
Public Services International
29 November 2011

2. How to ensure that primary health
care meets the health needs of
workers?
Who will ensure?
What will be ensured?

3. Who are the actors?
Who is concerned?
Health services:
•Workers are invisible,
indistinguishable and
unidentified
•Women workers and men
workers differ

4. Who are the actors?
Who is concerned?
Employers:
•Costs: of insurance, of
services vs replacement
•Health costs are rising;
precarity is growing

5. Who are the actors?
Who is concerned?
Workers:
•Workers have the necessary self-
interest
•Workers
•Lack knowledge
•Engage in unsafe/unhealthy work
•Lack protection

6. What are the health needs of
workers?
In health services, workers are unexceptional:
•Occupational link may or may not be
salient
•Worker/patient may or may not make the
link
•Health care worker may or may not be
aware of the link

7. What are the health needs of
workers?
To employers:
•Observed connections are seen
•Unobserved connections depend
on time, place, frequency

8. What are the health needs of
workers?
Workers have rights-based and
responsibility-based issues:
•Increased knowledge
•Access to participation
•Acceptance of prevention
•Engagement and adherence

9. The degree of penetration of occupational health
knowledge in the overall knowledge
base of service providers in the health field
is essential. Knowledge of relevant geographical
and epidemiological risks can be critical.
Often, furthermore, employers hold
important information on occupational
diseases related to their field of work,
owing to interest, experience, or
necessity

10. West Africa Health Sector
Unions Network (WAHSUN)
6 PSI health unions:
Ghana (2 unions); Nigeria (2 unions)
Liberia (1 union); Sierra Leone (1union)

11. Affiliate action.
That:
1. All Affiliate Unions/Associations
must intensify education on
Occupational Health and Safety at
all levels in the health sector to
create awareness and reduce the
incidence of work place injuries

12. Affiliate action.
That:
2. All Affiliate Unions/Associations
adopt innovative mechanisms to
identify workplace hazards and
injuries and maintain workplace
incidents book for the recording
and documentation of work-
related accidents

13. Affiliate action.
That:
3. All Affiliate Unions/Associations
ensure the formulation of OHS
policies, legal frameworks and
standards and form committees to
ensure compliance

14. Enterprise management/
Government action
Management/Governments should:
1. In practical terms ensure a safe working
environment and the availability of the correct
equipment and disposable supplies in adequate
numbers. To reduce the high incidence of needle
stick injuries, the supply of retractable syringes
and needles is strongly advocated

15. Enterprise management/
Government action
Management/Governments should:
2. Institute periodic inspection
programmes for all facilities to
identify occupational hazards and
take immediate action to
eliminate or reduce them

16. Enterprise management/
Government action
Management/Governments should:
3. Direct the inclusion of OHS
modules in all educational curricula
at both Senior High School and Tertiary
Institution levels to sensitize a
prospective and potential workforce
adequately towards occupational
safety

17. Enterprise management/
Government action
Management/Governments should:
4. Take up health worker migration issues more
seriously to reduce attrition rate of health
professionals in the sub-region. Right
equipment, occupational health and safety,
improved conditions of service, realistic salaries
and other inducements should be provided to
curb the attrition

18. The right to participate in
national policy-making
•Ratification of ILO Conventions
and Recommendations
•Application at national level

19. The right to participate in
national policy-making
•Unions to make policy not just
react to policy
•Fundamental principles and
rights at work – the core
conventions – as important as
OHS standards

20. ILO Occupational Safety and
Health Convention, 1981 (N° 155)
“Each Member shall...in consultation with
the most representative organisations of
employers and workers, formulate,
implement and periodically review a
coherent national policy on occupational
safety, occupational health and the
working environment”.

21. Occupational health and
primary health care
Lagging legislation opens doors to
patient-centered and universal
approaches to integrated
occupational and health care

22. Occupational health and
primary health care
Occupational health and safety
policies are
Healthy Public Policies

23. Occupational health and
primary health care
Unions can provide leadership to
negotiate and steer health policy,
alongside civil society, the private
sector, communities and the
business sector

24. “How primary health care can
integrate/support the preventive
services provided by workers
volunteers and representatives?”
can perhaps be more appropriately
approached with the questions
“When?” and “Where?” can this
happen?

25. Global work: Making ILO Conventions
and recommendations on
OHS user-friendly:
1. 37 Standards and 19 CoP into
plain language
2. Directory and key words
3. Matrix of ratifications by country
4. Applications, reports and surveys

26. Thank you for your attention
Public Services International is a global trade union federation
representing 20 million working women and men who deliver vital
public services in 150 countries. PSI champions human rights,
advocates for social justice and promotes universal access to quality
public services. PSI works with the United Nations system and in
partnership with labour, civil society and other organizations.