There are two common occupational related illnesses in healthcare environment: Asthma and Dermatitis.
Asthma is a chronic lung disease which causes inflammation of the airways. In the case of an asthma attack, the muscles around the airways become tight and the lining swells. This causes the problem with breathing, tightness in a person’s chest, shortness of breath or a cough. Asthma can be very dangerous when person’s airways close because it can lead to person’s death.
Occupational asthma is developed when the employee in healthcare environment is directly exposed to an irritant or an allergic substance in the workplace. There are 2 forms of occupational asthma. One is an Irritant Induced Occupational Asthma and second one is an Allergic Occupational Asthma.
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latex at the workplace. It is paramount to identify occupational asthma as early as possible.
Employers have a responsibility to make the work environment safe. They should carry out Risk Assessment to identify any hazards, identify how often and for how long are workers being exposed to sensitizers i.e. latex. Then an employer must decide what precautions and control measures should be applied. The best way is removing and not using sensitizers and replacing them with a safe substitute. If it is not possible an employer should try to reduce the number of employees exposed, provide ventilation and provide personal respiratory protection to employees. (HSA, 2008)
In healthcare environment powdered latex gloves should be replaced with low protein powder‐free NRL gloves or latex‐free gloves (LAMontagne, et al., 2006) All employers are required to have a written Safety Statement in the place to record any findings. In this case an employer must include respiratory risks found in the workplace in a Safety Statement and inform employees of the risk of the substances. (HSA,
It is quite a frightening experience because people with asthma have very sensitive airways. If something irritates the airways of a person with asthma, the airways become red and swollen, and this may be even more difficult for air to pass through the airways into the alveoli and out again. People become breathless and breathe more frequently, which makes them feel more anxious. Secondly, severe asthma can be life-threatening. Suffering from asthma can be frightening to experience and people often feel scared and anxious.
In my opinion, this exposure assessment was conducted to evaluate exposures to employees working in the facility and also to the ambient atmosphere since VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds) are regulated in the amount
... Latex Allergy Association - Creating Awareness of Latex Allergy through Education and Support. American Latex Allergy Association, [2009?] N. Pag. Web. 1 Nov. 2011.
OSHA regulations give full disclosure to employees about workplace hazards. Businesses that produce or import chemicals of any sort must review the dangers associated with these chemicals and have them labeled accordingly. They must also prepare material safety data sheets to go with any delivered chemicals. This will describe technical information as well as hazardous effects from exposure and the appropriate protective measures. Any employees wh...
Asthma is a disorder that interferes with the lungs and the airways to the lungs. It causes attacks of wheezing and difficult breathing. An asthma attack occurs when the airways respond to some kind of trigger, Some examples of triggers for Asthma attacks are dust, mold, pets, exercise, cold weather, and some attacks start for no known reason. The triggers may irritate the airways to the lungs, allowing disease-fighting cells to build up and causing the lungs to swell up. In addition, the airways could get blocked when the muscles surrounding the lungs tighten. This keeps air from circulating freely in the lungs. Or, mucus may clog and narrow the airways in the lungs, making breathing even more difficult.
Asthma is a condition of the bronchial tubes characterized by episodes of constriction and increased mucous production. A person with asthma has bronchial tubes that are super sensitive to various stimuli, or triggers, that can produce asthma symptom.In other words, asthmatics have special sensitivity that causes their lung tissue to react far more than is should to various stimulating factors or triggers. For this reason, people with asthma are said to have "twitchy airways."Some symptoms that people with asthma commonly experience are chest tightenings, difficulty inhaling and exhaling, wheezing, production of large amounts of mucous in their windpipes and coughing.Coughing can be frequent or intermittent, and can be loose-reflecting extra mucous secretion in the airways or dry and deep-reflecting tight bronchospasms. Not all these symptoms occur in every case of asthma.Sometimes people may have coughing without and symptoms for months or even years before it's realized that they are asthmatic. Interestingly enough, asthma symptoms are most severe at night, while we're lying down our airways narrow as a result of gravity changes. Also our lungs do not clear secretions as well at night, which leads to mucous retention, and that can increase the obstruction to air flow.
On site I would wear a dust mask correctly adjusted to my face to prevent any dust getting through my mouth or nose to prevent ‘pneumoconiosis’ which simply means ‘dusty lung’ this can cause serious health problems and wearing a face mask adjusted to the right size will decrease the risks massively.
Asthma is a disorder of the respiratory system in which the passages that enable air to pass into and out of the lungs periodically narrow, causing coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath. This narrowing is typically temporary and reversible, but in severe attacks, asthma may result in death. Asthma most commonly refers to bronchial asthma, an inflammation of the airways, but the term is also used to refer to cardiac asthma, which develops when fluid builds up in the lungs as a complication of heart failure. This article focuses on bronchial asthma.
Occupational Asthma This type of asthma is triggered by something in the patient's place of work. Factors such as chemicals, vapors, gases, smoke, dust, fumes, or other particles can trigger asthma. It can also be caused by a virus (flu), molds, animal products, pollen, humidity and temperature. Another trigger may be stress. Occupational asthma tends to occur soon after the patients starts a new job and disappears not long after leaving that
Section 8 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act (2005) puts the onus on the employer to ensure systems of work that are planned, organised, performed, maintained and revised as appropriate so as to be, so far as is reasonably practicable, safe and without risk to health. Section 19 of the Act requires the employer to conduct a risk assessment of work activities and Schedule 3 of the Act provides the general principles of prevention to ensure the safety of employees in the workplace.
Asthma is best described by its technical name: Reversible Obstructive Airway Disease (ROAD). In other words, asthma is a condition in which the airways of the lungs become either narrowed or blocked. The results are usually temporary but they cause shortness of breath, breathing trouble, wheezing, coughing, and tightness in the chest. To know what it really feels like to have asthma, I would like everyone to pick up the straw that’s on their desk and put it in their mouth as if they were using it to drink something. Then, pinch your nose. Try breathing for twenty seconds. A real attack can last up to more than 10 minutes and you are only doing it for 20 seconds. If we had more time, I would have the class go to a stairwell and have you run up and down and see what it is like to have asthma while doing other activities.
Chemical and fire hazards in the workplace cause serious injuries that in most cases are fatal.
The term ‘occupational health and safety’ (often abbreviated to OHS), is used describe work practices that will keep employees safe. The absence of OHS can be detrimental to a company and its workers alike, as there is a high risk of serious injury. Safety on many worksites must be the top priority for any corporation. Though at our walk-around of Juggernaut Industries, we noticed it wasn’t monitored at all. The following is a list of possible effects and laws that will remind you of the consequences.
Employers have a legal obligation to inform employees about safety and health standards that apply to their workplace. Employers must establish a written, comprehensive hazard communication program to ensure that employees who work with or near hazardous materials...
A hazard is defined as an activity or object that has the potential to cause harm if contact is made with the person, object or activity (MHS, 1996; Harmse, 2007; HSE, 2006). These hazards in a work place need to be identified and dealt with accordingly to prevent any harm to employees or any individual acquainted to a certain activity or establishment. The key roles and principles of occupational hygiene are Anticipation, Identification, Evaluation and Control (Schoeman and van den Heever, 2014; Harmse, 2008; SAMTRAC, 2012). To practise in accordance to the above principle; a hazard identification and risk assessment needs to be conducted. Anticipation is the foreseeing of the activity