The Singapore International Foundation is undertaking a two-year occupational health project in the Riau Islands Province of Indonesia. The project aims to improve safety, hygiene, and disease management at workplaces. It takes a training-of-trainers approach to equip a core team of 12 Indonesian trainers to then train others. This is expected to benefit around 250,000 blue-collar workers in Batam and 200,000 more workers on other islands by training an estimated 605 occupational health practitioners. The project also indirectly benefits around 700 more practitioners from islands like Bintan and Karimun. The region was chosen due to its growing industrialization and workforce.

1. 26 LIFESTYLE lite JULY 2011
Stepping into our hotel
lobby, he was one of
the first to introduce
himself when our team
arrived inTanjung Pinang,
Bintan. Sporting stylishly
grey hair and glasses,
Associate Professor Lee
See Muah, Department
of Epidemiology and Public Health,Yong Loo
Lin School of Medicine, NUS is part of the SIF
Volunteer team. He has previously spent
11 years as Medical Advisor of Shell Pulau
Bukom Refinery. He oversaw the refinery’s
Distractions:outreach
Improving safety and hygiene at the workplace, and spotting and managing diseases in
the Riau Islands Province. Those are components of a two-year Singapore International
Foundation Occupational Health Project. WONG MUN WAI accompanied the team
to see how Singaporean expertise will help hundreds of thousands of workers.
OCCUPATIONAL
HEALTH HELP
FOR INDONESIA
occupational health programme which makes his
experience valuable to the workers.
“The long term goals would also be sustainability.
We want to involve the trainers, the key personal
to help in all these regions following our
exchange and sharing so they can also disseminate
down the line,” said Associate Professor Lee.
WINNERS
This project takes the training-of-trainers approach
and is aimed at equipping a core team of about 12
Indonesian trainers who will then go on to train
others. In addition to the core team, about 28 to
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2. LIFESTYLE lite JULY 2011 27
30 occupational health practitioners have attended
selected training sessions to enhance their skills.
The beneficiaries are an estimated 250,000 blue-
collar workers in Batam and 200,000 more workers
on other islands.
The result is an estimated
at least 605 occupational
health practitioners from
the 605 health centres
and facilities in Batam will
benefit from the project to
provide services to workers.
A further estimated 700
occupational health practitioners from other
islands, chiefly Bintan and Karimun, will also benefit
indirectly.
The province was identified as needing training
in occupational health because of its rapidly
industrialising area with a growing working
population from different parts of the country.
IN ACTION
One of the participants is Project Doctor, Mulyadi,
41, from PT Saipem Indonesia, a multinational
company involved mostly in construction for
oil and gas. His company’s Karimun IslandYard
has 584 employees with another 1,600 contract
employees. In his company, muscle spasms and
dermatitis have been identified as work related.
He has attended all three project training sessions
and a training attachment for the whole project
beginning in August 2009 to April 2011.
“In Saipem, we have already implemented all the
occupational health skills that we got in the training,”
he said.
In June, his company started more construction
projects and will “implement many, many things
about occupational health.”
A year after the conclusion of the Health
project an audit will be conducted to assess its
effectiveness and other potential needs areas, if
any.
And the project could have a wider impact on
workplace safety for other workers in Indonesia.
The health practitioners at the training
include decision makers in the Directorate of
Occupational Health at the Indonesian Ministry
of Health.The Directorate has collaborated
with the Project.The practitioners will gain
insights to occupational health services for
future policy purposes. lite
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