Chapter 16
CHAPTER NO.16 SAFETY LAWS ACCIDENTS AND
FIRST-AID
India as a nation is committed to the welfare and
development of its people. Our constitution guarantees, besides other rights,
protection of life, personal liberty and provides adequate safeguards against
occupational hazards and injuries. Keeping in view the constitutional
obligations, the Parliament and the State legislature have enacted laws for the
safety of workers and betterment of environment.'
OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY
Safety in industries : This is generally ignored
under the labour laws. The first such act is The Factories Act, 1948. It is a
principal legislation for regulating and ensuring various
aspects relating to safety, health and welfare of
the workers employed in different facto-ties. This Act is central enactment
arimed at protecting workers employed in factories
from industrial and occupational hazards. The State
govenments and the Union Territory administration also frame rules under the
Act and enforce provisions of the act and rules
through factory inspectors. The Factories Act was
amended in 1987 in order to impose some conditions on the employers to ensure
the health and safety of the workers. A new chapter for regulating safety and
health aspect in hazardous industries was incorporated
in this Act.
Safety at the ports and docks : The Workers Act,
1986 has provisions relating to safety and health of dock workers. This act
came into being on 15* April, 1987. The Manufacture,Storage and Import of
Hazardous Chemicals Rules, 1989 framed under the Environment
(Protection) Act, 1986 also ensure a safe working
environment.
Safety in mines ; For safety and health of mine workers,
The Mines Act was framed in 1952. Under this Act, there are provisions for (a)
investigations of all fatal accidents (b) grant
of statutory permission, exemption, relaxation in
respect of various mining operations and (c)approval of mines safety equipment,
appliances and materials,
Under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 various
policies and programmes have been formulated. The main objective of such
policies is to promote safe handling, management and use of hazardous substance
and wastes in order to prevent potential damage to the health of workers and
the general environment. The rules are implemented in association with the
Central
and State Pollution Control Boards. If needed, the
rules can be modified from time to time to rationalize and streamline the
policies and programmes to ensure proper management of hazard-
ous substances.
Most of the States have constitueted their State
level crisis groups. Under the Public Liability Insurance Act, 1991 as amended
in 1992, all major accident hazard units handling chemicals in
excess of threshold quantities referred to in the
schedule are mandated to take an insurance policy and deposit an equal amount
in the Environment Relief Fund to ensure immediate payment to chemi-
cal accident victims.
For an overall safety of workers, the Ministry of
Labour constituted the National Safety Council in 1966 to promote safety
consciousness among workers to prevent accidents and minimize dangers to
mitigate human sufferings. Under the programme, lectures and conferences on
safety are arranged to raise awareness amongst employers and the workers. Each
year the National Safety Day is cel-ebrated of 4* March to mark the foundation
day of the National Safety Council.
ACCIDENTS AND MAJOR OCCUPATIONAL
HAZARDS
Many industries and other occupation make materials
which do not exist in nature. In order to avoid accidents causing harm to the
workers and the environment, such materials require
careful handling during manufacture, transport,
storage, use and disposal. Many of these chemicals are not biodegradable and
have the potential to cause adverse health effects and remain in the
environment for decades. The release of these materials may occur by spilling,
leaking, emitting toxic vapours or any other process that enables the materials
to escape from the container which results in creating a potential hazard. The
main accident causing hazards are divided into three
categories,
Explosives : The substances that release gas and
heat suddenly when they are subjected to heat, shock or high pressure are
called as explosives. Explosives with a mass explosion
hazard are tri-nitro-toluene (TNT) and
Tri-nitro-glycerin. Explosive with projection hazards but not a mass explosion
are bombs, grenades, anti-hail rockets etc. The explosives having
both the above mentioned properties include
propellant and display fireworks. The workers handling such materials must see
the label on the containers and strictly observe the instruc-tions mentioned
for their use.
Flammables and combutibles ; These are substances
which are easy to ignite and can be gases, liquids or solids, The flammable
gases are those which are compressed, liquefied or dissolved under pressure.
Such gases on contact with ignition source produces fire, e.g. acety-lene,
hydrogen, liquefied petroleum gas etc, The flammable liquids include diethy]
ether, car-bon disulphide, petrol, acetone, methylated spirit, kerosene,
turpentine etc. The flammable solid substances inchide nitrocellulose,
phosphorus, matches, aluminium, alkyis, calcium car-
bide etc.
The workers of such industries should bear masks
against inhalaton of gases. They should bear fire resistant clothes. As per the
international laws such substances are labelled as shown in fig.
(16.1). Workers should handle such substances very
cautiously.
Toxic materials or poisons : Toxic materials can
cause injury or death when they enter the bodies of living beings, including
man. The poisonous substances causing death or serious injury to human health
are cyanides and lead compounds. Some toxic substances that do not
cause death but or otherwise harmful to human health
include various pesticides and biomedi-cal wastes like vaccines and pathogenic
organisms. The poisonous gases that can cause death ot serious injury to health
if inhaled are ammonia and chlorine. Workers handling such mate-tials should
see the labels carefully and should follow proper procedure for their disposal.
The hazardous substances can enter the body in any
of the following entry routes:
(a) Absorption through skin and eyes : If a worker
walks barefoot on the floor of industry,the contaminants spilled on the floor
will come in contact with the skin of the feet. It can cause irritation, bums,
sores or ulcers on the skin. Similarly, workers not using gloves while handling
the poisnous chemicals are also prone to such accidents. Such workers should
never put their hands on the eyes without proper washing, as the eyes are very
sensitive to toxic substances.
(b) Injections :
In industries, various toxic substances get injected directly though the cut
skin and enter into blood stream while handling contaminated cans.
(c) Ingestion :
In some industries or work places, there are chances of toxic substances
entering through ingestion. An example of inadvertent ingestion is a battery
factory em-ployee who eats lunch in the work area and ingests lead which has
contaminated the
food and water.
(d) Inhalation :
Some of the hazardous substances, especially gases such as hydrogen sul-phide,
carbon monoxide etc. enter the into the lungs through inhalation. The workers
of all such industries should follow the first-aid rules as given below.
FIRST-AID
To provide first-aid service is an essential part of
every industry and workplace to meet out emergent situations. The extent of
this service may vary from place to place, but an identification of hazards,
risk assessment and risk control processes used for providing information are
basically same for different industries and work places. In this chapter,
information is given about equipment.
facilities and training for the persons delivering
the first aid.
Definition : As per the International Labour
Organisations (ILO), first-aid is an immediate and temporary care of a victim
of an accident, with the aim of preventing or reducing an
acute threat to the life. It is provided by a person
who may not be a physician but a trained ‘first-aider’.
Keeping industrial and occupational hazards in view,
almost all the countries of the world including India have made the provision
of first aid service in work places mandatory through
legislation,
Ais off first-aid : The main aims of the first aid
service are as follows:
Tosave the life of the employees of the industry or
the work place and also to take care of people other than empolyces e.g.
children and parents in a school and customers in a shop etc.
To protect the unconscious people and to see that
their condition may not become
worse.
To relieve pain and suffering of affected people and
to promote their recovery.
Planning of first-aid services : Planning is a part
of safety management system with the main focus on prevention of accidents. The
areas to be covered under the emergency man-agement plan are:
Rescue activities
Evacuation procedures
Transport to the nearest hospital or medical centre
Control of fire, gas leakage and flooding
Contact with relatives
Arrangement systems
Secutity
Another component of planning emergenices and
developing first-aid facilities is consulation between the employers and
workers. Theit involvement in planning helps in understanding
and commitment of the provisions of first aid. All
workers at the work place need to have information and instructions on as how
the system works so that they are able to use it
without delay, whenever needed. It can be included
in induction programmes for new work-ers. All those workers who work alone in
an isolated workplace should be more cautions about first-aid training. For
example, a worker working in a farm should know what to do in case of a snake
bite.The identification of hazard is also an essential component of planning.
The hazards can be mechanical, toxic chemicals or noise etc. Other hazards may
result from equipment failure or misuse, power system failure and chemical
spills etc.It is thus emphasized that good planning and provision of first-aid
service can reduce the severity of injuries and disease at a work place.
Establishment of first aid service : To provide
first aid service at a work place is the primary responsibility of an employer.
The employer should appoint first-aider and should delegate some specific
duties to the workers. All the workers should be provided with prac-
tical training of first-aid. Workers must be
informed about the location of first-aid boxes. All employees must be told
about the names of the first-aiders, their contact number and address
so that they can be contacted immediately when an emergency arises.
This above information can be provided through:
Introduction programmes
Awareness sessions
News-letters
Staff meetings
Notice board and announcements: The information must
be given in a simple language so that it can be understood by all the workers.
The duties of the workers are compliementary to the
duties of the employer.
The workers should know the location of first-aid
room, first-aid facilities, names and address of the first-aiders.
Tomake sute that the first-aid facilities are not
misused.
They should carefully follow the instructions and
directions given by the first-aider.
They should report all cases of injuries to the
first aider whether treatment may be required or not.
(v) First Aider: First aider is the person
responsible for providing an immediate medical care at the place of accident. A
good first aider should have following capabilties:
Should remain calm in an emergency situation.
Should be able to provide appropriate assessment in
an emergency.
Should physically handle rescue situations.
Should take care and control causalities during such
emergencies.The duties of a first-aider can be divided into two categories.
{a) The duties during normal times are:
To provide regular feedback to management regarding
the provisions of first-aid ser-vices.
To identify areas likely to give rise to injury or
work caused illness.
Toreview the safety methods for preventing the
accidents.
To identify as to whom the facilities are most
needed.
To arrange training programmes for workers regarding
safe and healthy prac
tices to be followed
By taking workers into confidence, the first-aider
should maintain a personal health record of each worker that will help him
during any accident or emergency.
{b) The duties at the time of an accident or
emergency ate:
To immediately attent to the injuries and diseases
occuring at the work place.
To ensure that management has established contacts
with emergency service like fire
To take the help of workers who are not affected in
the accident.
To prepare the record of all injuries which are to
be referred to the hospital.
To follow the legal principle which states that
first-aiders should act reasonably with a genuine concern for the best
interests of the victims.
(vi) Equipment and facilities : The equipment and
facilties to be provided shall vary from in-dustry to industry and from place
to place. The equipment and facilities include first-aid box,
first-aid room, communicatin system and eye wash
stations etc.
First-aid box : It is the foremost requirement of
each work place and industry. The first aid box should contain sufficient
quantity of materials required at a work place. It should
be replenished as soon as the material has been
used. The out dated medicines and damaged material should be replaced. It
should be handy and kept at a place of imme-diate access.
First aid room : The first-aid room should meet the
following requirements:
It should be under the command of a qualified first
aider. The person should be available at all times when workers are on duty at
a workplace.
It should be well ventilated, heated/cooled and well
lighted.
It should be cleaned and washed regularly.
It should have sufficient equipment like stretchers,
wheel chairs, beds etc.
The room should be located at a suitable site having
access for transport to hospital and easily accessible to injured workers.
The room should be large enough to contain an
examinatin table with a suflficient space for people to walk around.
Communication means: Effective means of
communication should be provided in the
industry or the working place so that during an
emergency an immediate contact can be made with the first-aider and the
first-aid room.
Eye wash station : Besides the first-aid room, eye
wash stations may be provided at different points throughout the working place.
Protection of first-aider: The first aider himself
is exposed to many injuries and infections.It is a common assumption that all
blood and body fissure are a potential source of many
infections, especially the viral infections like
Hepatitis, Herpes, HIV or AIDS etc. Thus it is very essential to ensure that
the first aider should be provided with adequate information and
training for self protection. The first-aider should
bear disposable gloves to reduce the risk of cross infection. The waste
contaminated with blood and body substances and the items like needles and
other sharp instruments should be properly disposed off.
Training of first-aider : It is a very important
aspect of bio-safety that the first-aider should be well trained for the basic
level of first-aid and posses training according to the needs of the
work place. It is the duty of the employer to ensure
that the training be got imparted from some recognised institute of repute. The
training should include first-aid management of frac-
tures, traumatic amputation, shock, injuries,
strains and sprains, electric shock, spinal injury,posioning, bites and stings,
eye injuries, ear injuries, open wounds, choking, medical emer-
gencies like asthma, diabetes, allergies etc.
EXERCISE
(A) Very short answer type questions (1
mark each) :
1. What are explosive?
2. Name the Act associated with protection of
environment.
3. When was the Factories Act enacted?
4, Name two toxic solids.
5. On which day the National Safety Day is
celebrated?
6. Name two poisonous gases.
(B) Short answer type questions (2
marks each) :
1. What are toxic or poisonous substances?
2. How are the hazardous substances released into
the environment?
3. What is first-aid?
4, Suggest two safety precautions for industrial
workers who handle toxic substances,
5. Write about the first-aid related duties of an
industrial worker.
(C) Short answer type questions (4
marks each):
1. How do the hazardous materials enter the body?
2. How can an employer spread awareness about
first-aid?
3. What are the flammable and combustible
substances?
4, What are the main aims of first-aid?
5. Howcan a first-aider ensure his safety?
6. Write a brief note on qualities of a good
first-aider.
(D)} Long answer type questions: (5
marks each):
1, Discuss some accident causing hazardous
substances.
2. What are the different duties of a first-aider?
3. Write about some important first-aid equipments
and facilities.
