Playing it safe

There are also hazardous chemicals involved in the oil and gas industry, such as Benzene, which require monitoring and assessing to ensure the workers are not over exposed.

"Safety measures are normally enforced by the company to reduce this exposure, such as limiting time on site with breaks every few weeks, environmentally clean areas to go to in case of leakage and special masks. Respiratory function is normally checked before joining and during the job among other tests to make sure the employee is not facing health hazards related to chemical exposure," explains Chidiac.

Infectious disease can also brought onto site via workers coming from varying regions of the world. Diseases such as malaria - mainly found on African sites - and tuberculosis need to be screened, particularly if employees are going out to work on offshore sites.

"The main endemic disease in this part of the world is tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is a very complicated public health issue. The disease can be active or latent - active diseases would eventually be deported but latent cases are common among workers and might become active and contagious. The risk is mild but not negligible," says Chidiac.

When the employee has been certified as fit for the job and is onsite, then the health and safety of the workers is heavily reliant on the education they and their employer have been provided.

As Dr Chidiac says, "education is definitely important at all levels, for managers, supervisors and workers - especially for the workers as this is usually lacking."

Both Hutchinson and Peters support this advice, and include it as part of the service they provide. "Telling employees to do something for health reasons and at the same time explaining the benefits are very important. It's no use telling someone to wear a mask, which they may consider uncomfortable, without explaining why they should and the reasons why, so education is a very important part of a responsible HSE programme," says Peters.

"Beyond the obvious things to look out for, we are also more involved with stress management, diabetes, and addressing lifestyle habits such as smoking than perhaps the medical industry was in decades past. This has quite tangible benefits, by taking an interest and making employee health a priority you can raise productivity and improve staff retention rates," added Hutchinson.

One of the leading pioneers of health and safety at work in the region can be found at Drydocks World, Dubai, who recently picked up the Facility Management Magazine's award for the Health and Safety Initiative category.

They have also achieved four Sword of Honour awards in a row, the British Safety Council's recognition for excellence in managing health and safety, which is presented to just 40 companies worldwide each year. A very impressive record which Tony Potter, group health and safety manager, is obviously proud of.

"We have a huge training section, so all our employees are trained the moment they step through the door. They go for induction training and then various other training that is planned throughout their career," says Potter.

"We start at a very low level leading up to professional standard courses - this could entail basic health and safety awareness training, risk assessment training, supervisory training - all to do with onsite health and safety," he adds.

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