Materia Medica Malaysiana

Docs need to know Occupational Safety and Health issues

KUALA LUMPUR: There is an urgent need to enhance doctors’ knowledge of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) issues, says National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) chairman, Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye.
He said the ratio of Occupational Health Doctors (OHD) to workers in the country is one to 30,000.
The role of OHDs is to help industries conduct medical surveillance required under the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994.
“Medical surveillance is necessary to detect adverse health effects on workers as a result of occupational exposure. Besides medical surveillance, surveys must be conducted to assess the occupational hygienic conditions of a workplace,” said Lee.
He said the Social Security Organisation (Socso) had made it a requirement that all its panel doctors be trained in occupational health by this year.
Currently, only 456 of the 40,000 Socso panel doctors have attended workshops on occupational health organised by NIOSH.
“NIOSH runs a certificate programme for OHDs which has a syllabus governed by the Use And Standards Of Exposure Of Chemicals Hazardous To Health Regulations 2000,” he said.
“We have also set up an Occupational Medicine Centre at our head office in Bandar Baru Bangi to provide advice and laboratory services in occupational health.”