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Following is a question by the Hon Chan Kwok-keung and a reply by the Acting Secretary for Education and Manpower, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, in the Legislative Council today(Wednesday):
Question:
In relation to the occupational safety and health of employees of the hospitals under the Hospital Authority (HA), will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the number of random inspections carried out by the Administration in the past two years in regard to HA's supervision of its hospitals in the compliance with the Occupational Safety and Health Regulation; whether any prosecutions have been instituted in relation to cases of non-compliance; if so, of the number of these prosecutions;
(b) of the total amount of employees' compensation arising from injury at work and the total number of days of sick leave granted to the employees of these hospitals in the past two years; and
(c) whether it has assessed if the existing ward design and layout of the hospitals may constitute potential risk to employees involved in manual handling operation; and of the measures taken to reduce such risk?
Reply:
President,
The Occupational Safety and Health Regulation, which was gazetted on June 20, 1997, provides for standards on the general safety, health and welfare as well as manual handling operations in the non-industrial workplaces for the first time. In order to allow sufficient time for employers and employees to familiarise themselves with the requirements of the new regulation, the Administration provided a grace period for its implementation. The main body of the regulation came into effect on January 1, 1998 while the part on manual handling operations came into effect on July 1, 1998.
(a) Regarding part (a) of the question, hospitals are complex workplaces where a wide range of facilities are housed and activities conducted. Based on overseas experience, the Labour Department considers that, for the purpose of the Hospital Authority's supervision of its hospitals in compliance with the Occupational Safety and Health Regulation, it will be more efficient and cost-effective to conduct a structured inspection programme of the safety and health management system in the hospitals under the Hospital Authority rather than through random inspections. This approach has the full support of the Hospital Authority.
Each inspection to a hospital involves a multi-disciplinary team from the Labour Department and, depending on the size of the hospital, takes about two to four working days to complete. It covers a briefing by hospital management, documentation check and an on-site inspection of a number of selected workplaces to verify the extent of implementation of the system by front-line staff.
Since July this year, nine hospitals have been inspected. According to our agreed schedule, the remaining 33 hospitals and two institutions under the Hospital Authority will be inspected by May 1999.
This new multi-disciplinary approach is intended to encourage self-regulation at the enterprise level and is in keeping with the Government's new policy direction in managing workplace safety and health. The emphasis is on assisting the hospitals to put in place a safety management system. However, once the system is fully operational, surprise checks and enforcement on compliance with the relevant regulation will follow. In the meantime, however, we will take necessary enforcement action against a hospital if any blatant disregard of the law is found.
(b) On part (b) of the question, according to Labour Department's record, hospitals under the Hospital Authority reported a total of 2,970 cases with sick leave exceeding three days under the Employees' Compensation Ordinance between January 1997 and October 1998. Of these, 1,766 cases were settled, involving a total compensation amount of $17.55 million and 22,503 sick leave days.
(c) Regarding part (c) of the question, we agree that poorly designed or congested wards may cause workplace injuries to staff while undertaking manual handling operations. In the nine hospitals inspected so far, no such imminent risks were observed. We noted also that in order to enhance safety awareness among employees and to minimise the risk of occupational injuries, improvement measures were being taken in individual hospitals, such as the publication of guidelines and educational pamphlets on manual handling, structural modifications to bathrooms and toilets, the trial use of different models of mechanical aids for patient handling, and the phased replacement of standard hospital beds with height-adjustable ones. We understand that as a longer term objective, the Hospital Authority is committed to providing adequate mechanical aids to reduce the risks of manual handling. On the training side, some 150 Hospital Authority staff have been trained up so far under a special programme. They have in turn trained about 1,500 front-line supervisors in the assessment of risks associated with manual handling. These supervisors are responsible for training nurses, ward assistants and other staff on proper manual handling techniques and the correct use of these mechanical aids in various hospitals. Most of the front-line staff are expected to have received such training by early next year.
End/Wednesday, November 11, 1998
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