Where Accidents Happen

Abstract

Throughout this book, we say that nearly all accidents, ill health and diseases are avoidable. The struggle for workers is to make the workplace safer, basically by doing two things; first, finding out what the health and safety problems are and, second, getting their employer to do something about them. So in this chapter we set out to look at the different workplaces in a hospital, to show what dangers exist and to point out how to overcome them. Instead of looking at the risks by occupation, we have chosen to do it by workplace simply because people in different jobs may all find themselves working in the same place facing the same dangers. For example, on a busy morning you will probably find nurses, porters, doctors, ward orderlies and maybe even laboratory technicians working in a hospital ward. Using this workplace approach, safety reps should be able to spot hazards and arm themselves with some basic knowledge on how to deal with them.