President of the Society of Occupational Medicine UK, Dr Lanre Ogunyemi, has asked the Federal government to make occupational health a compulsory for all workers by passing into law the occupational health in Nigeria.
He said that the law, if passed, will be a big driver of good occupational health for workers and improve productivity and the economy, as it will ensure that employers of labour that don’t look after the health and safety of their workers could be appropriately fined.
Dr Ogunyemi spoke at a workshop on occupational health for healthcare workers for primary health workers by the Society of Occupational Medicine UK in collaboration with the Society of Occupational and Environmental Health Physicians of Nigeria and the College of Medicine at the University of Ibadan in Ibadan.
Ogunyemi, a consultant in occupational medicine, said the passage and enforcement of occupation health law places the burden of health and safety of employees on their employers, and it will ensure that workers, particularly healthcare workers, are safer and have an improved well-being.
According to him, “Healthcare workers are the ones at the front line in terms of helping the community, and if they are not able to learn how to protect their own health, then it’s difficult for them to be productive, for them to be able to prevent illness, protect their own illness, and for them to have a long working life span.
“I wouldn’t quantitatively rate where we are in terms of occupational health, but we’re way behind developed countries. And what we can do is try and improve where we are at the moment. It is something that needs massive help and input from Diaspora.
“So I would appeal to my colleagues in Diaspora not to neglect where they come from but to come and do what they can to help occupational health in Nigeria. We know it’s a challenging societal environment.”
He declared that the UK government, through the Department of Health and Social Care, wanted to develop the global health work force and had made some grants available, particularly to develop the health workforce in Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana.
The principal investigator for the programme, “Occupational Health for Health Care Workers,” Professor Folasade Omokhodion stated that findings of a baseline survey of primary health care workers found them very vulnerable to many occupational health problems.
“Post the COVID pandemic, it became very obvious that health care workers are vulnerable. That was the beginning of the realisation that health care workers, no matter their status, are at risk. Not just from infection, there is the psychosocial problem of dealing with life and death.
“So, we decided to use the opportunity of this training grant to start this programme in Oyo State. And we are hoping that we can take it across the country.
“Prior to this, we had done a baseline survey to find out what the occupational health problems of primary health care workers are. The findings were that some health care workers are still recapping needles. About a quarter of them have not had the immunisation for hepatitis B.
“They also had issues about knowledge on safety practices in the workplace. And, of course, one of the major things was that fire safety was almost nil.
“So this programme is teaching primary health care workers how to make themselves fit for purpose, fit for the job so that they are strong, they can protect themselves, and they are well-equipped to deliver their jobs and help the community.”
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