Biography - 2019

My name is Alaa Mohamed Elfatieh Atieya, an environmental health student, I never thought that I would be taking this major but I am always up for new challenges, I enjoy hobbies like painting and reading books. Besides being an environmental health officer, I am hoping to be a researcher in the long run and if possible, an author.

I used to be a athletic kid in which I had played basketball, volleyball, running marathons, and handball. However, as I grew up my interest had entirely shifted to reading books. I read anything and everything as long as I will gain an information out of it. It is soothing and a good way to spend leisure time. 

I am very ambitious and very competitive as I love to develop my skills in every aspect continuously. I have a natural leadership skills and had learned to be dependable on my teammates these past few years. My dream and goal in life is to be a successful women in her career\path, not because I am trying to prove myself to others but I am trying to prove to my own self that I can try new challenges and so slowly but surely come out of my comfort zone to be a better person. I like to compete with the older me to a better me today till i finally reach my goal. 

Health & Safety Auditing

Monitoring isn't a foreign aspect in health and safety, but auditing is quite different than monitoring, surveys, inspections and tours. How? 

Well monitoring is more detailed, specified and it's more deep than the others when it comes to CHECKING the performance in the ACT phase. 
An Audit involves collecting information on the efficiency, effectiveness and reliability of the total health and safety management system and drawing up plans for corrective action.

You would notice that the audit is detailed when you first look at the picture above and second when you know what it actually covers and it's stages from preparatory work to on site, and finally conclusion that accommodates:

1. The Policy:

 

2. Workers Participation:

3. Responsibility & Accountability:

4. Competence and Training:

5. OHS Documentations: 

6. Communication:

Active & Reactive Monitoring

Active and Reactive monitoring are the core process during the performance assessment. I summarized & simplified it in 2 flowcharts: 

Flow chart (1)

You would think that these two can't come together because one is to be done before the accident and the second one is after the accident. I was curious myself and so when i asked my instructor about it i was told that when i am doing an inspection (ACTIVE) and you find something hazardous is when you need to investigate it. (REACTIVE). 

Flow chart (2)

For further explanation, I liked the way HSE delivered the information about this topic. where they defined both types listed them and explain how to do them.

Sources of Health and Safety

1. WHO

World health organization had a page and a whole section for Occupational Health. I was surprised to find it since it isn't really their main section. But they still identified and presented it. 

                                                                                                                        

 

2. Work Safe Victoria

Their page talked more about the regulation and acts, polices,guidance and forms. You can even contact (call) them or submit your email and they'll keep you updated. 

3. OHS Canada

Okay, so I knew about many sites talking about OHS... but I didn't see this one coming at all. Canada has a specified magazine for OHS!

You can either order it online or purchase it in the nearest store. This is honestly a creative way to spread OHS news and reflect on the importance of OHS, in the magazine they feature stories, opinions news and continuous updates on OHS.

The Human Factors of OHS and How OHS Behavior Can Be Improved

To decrease the possibility of major accidents we have to look at the core or the causes and sources of these accidents. Most of the major accidents are due to the discard of the near misses accidents!
An example from a real life events:

 "A specific company that didn't care enough to use the right material for their vehicles wheels kept ignoring the minor accidents that kept happening to their clients, it didn't  motivate them enough to start taking their job seriously, until one day a family purchased a car from that company and went on a road trip using that car,while in the middle of the roadway they had a major car accident where 3 other cars were involved and and costed them the life of their  own dad."


And it's really tragic and unfortunate to say that:

1. Most of the major accidents are 90% due to humans errors.
2. Major accidents often happen due to preventable reasons.

Basically it's by common sense when you want to build a skyscraper. The first bricks have got to be strong and safe for a successful process. Same goes for near misses turning major.

Since 90% of the major accidents are humans mistakes. they actually had a whole study about it and put it into 3 categories and they called it [Human Factor]: 

  

Also, human failures were divided to errors and violations. To tell the difference between errors and violations and simply explaining it i'll take a FAKE examples of me and my chemistry lab procedure:

A) Errors:

1) Human Errors:

1. Slips: [I took my chemical substance out of the oven too late, so now the lab blew up].
2. Lapses: [My procedure steps were twisted, and I followed it because I am simply doing what I was told to do].

2) Human Mistakes:

1. Rule based mistakes: [I performed one of the first steps in the procedure incorrectly and i kept going so my final results were wrong].
2. Knowledge based mistakes: [I was given in my procedure an acid formula for me to perform, but I performed it to a base which resulted to a concentrated\ dangerous substance].

B) Violations:

1. Routine violations: [ I'm so used to work in the lab without my procedure because I like to save my time and energy. I also skip some of the steps when I think it's unnecessary].
2. Situational violations: [My lab procedure are too long and difficult to understand and follow so i'll just act in a simplified way].
3. Exceptional violations: [A fire broke down in the lab, when the easiest thing to do is to run to the exit mind you we have practiced it lots of times. I though i'd be clever to perform a new task in the real deal situation by trying to stop the fire with a fire extinguishers]. and situations like this is very rare thought. 

• Now that I've listed and explained errors and violations. I've personally noticed 2 differences and 1 similarity between these errors and violations:

1. The differences: Error is a human nature and we all makes mistakes on daily bases,Violation is a senseless act of ignorance. In my opinion! 
2. The similarities: Both can be avoided to reduce the possibilities of risks and the consequences of these risks in order to establish a positive health and safety culture. 

On the other hand, The improvement of health and safety behavior at work can be accomplished when a safe methods and positive policy is set by the management, and that's where the management needs to be commitment by setting high standards, training for competence, promotions, consultations and communication throughout all the levels in the organization from the up top management to mangers, supervisors to workers and employees. and to ensure the regular reports from the mangers on health and safety. If the above is completed in the organization's process I think it will surly lead to a continuous improvement! 

The Key Features and Appropriate Content of an Effective Health & Safety Policy

QATARGAS Health and Safety Policy: 

[note: The link for the site is right down below and a snapped picture from the site is taken to it's related point]

https://www.qatargas.com/English/SafetyAndEnvironment/Pages/default.aspx


The Policy of QATARGAS is a near good example for OHS policy their safety page was concise and clearly written and it fitted the the organization considering how they had a whole page and not just a side link for their policy.

1. Their policy can be found online. so it's accessible to the public, people at the workplace and it's made relevant to external interested parties as mentioned in the policy newspaper.


2. It included not only a signature by the most senior accountable person in the organization but a personal message from the CEO himself where he explained his position in relation to OHS policy.

3. They had their health and safety objective and aims clear and organized in individual sections.

4.  They had a performance targets to check for improvements in the performances.

5. It is reviewed for continuing suitability by the officials

On the other hand, even though they had many good points they considered and how they mentioned that they are looking for a better OHS development. they lacked one thing, which was that last time they updated their OHS letter was 2011.

Learning Objectives of Chapter 1

1.1 The scope and nature of occupational health and safety 

No one would think much about the importance of Occupational Health and Safety until it was stated by The International Labour (ILO), World Health Organization (WHO) and United Natuon (UN) that there's 270 million occupational accidents and 160 million occupational diseases every year.

Occupational health and safety (OHS) is a must in all and every aspects in life and branches of industry such as: hospitals, companies, information technology, care home and schools..etc, whereas there are many obstacles in the way of reaching a good standards in OHS such as:

1. The pressure of production or performance targets.
2. Financial constraints.
3. The complexity of the organization.  

There are also some powerful incentives for organizations to strive for those high standards and those are:

1. Moral.
2. Legal.
3. Economic.

Corporate responsibility covers the way in which an organization handle their business which lead to the answers to a lot of issues including the effects that the business society has on the environment, human rights and third world poverty.

It's also important to know the difference between a Hazard and a Risk. A hazard: is something that has the potential to cause harm. But a risk: is the likelihood of getting hurt due to the exposure to that hazard and the consequences to it.