The University of Mines and Technology has celebrated World Day for Health Safety with a call on the general public to adhere to safety principles at work.
The annual World Day for Safety and Health at Work celebrated on 28 April promotes the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases globally.
It is an awareness-raising campaign intended to focus international attention on the magnitude of the problem and on how promoting and creating a safety and health culture can help reduce the number of work-related deaths and injuries.
The World Day for Safety and Health at Work is a significant tool to raise awareness of how to make work safe and healthy and of the need to raise the political profile of occupational safety and health.
The celebration, spearheaded by the Disaster and Emergency Management Hub (DEM HUB) began with a simulation exercise at the Tarkwa main station to depict how people should respond when accidents happened on the road.
A supposed accident scene between a truck carrying cyanide and a minibus fully loaded with passengers and toppled on its side. Fire broke out from the truck and engulfed the cyanide boxes.
The Driver and his assistant escaped with minor injuries. However, in addition to victims trapped in the minibus, casualties included pedestrians who got hit when the cyanide truck veered off its course.
In the attempt to extinguish the fire with a dry chemical powder fire extinguisher, the driver’s assistant inhaled smoke containing cyanide poison and became unresponsive.
This mock exercise attracted lots of people who came to the scene to see how the emergency response teams will manage to evacuate victims from the accident scene.
The emergency response teams were made up of the Ghana National fire service. Ghana Ambulance service, NADMO, Ghana Police, Immigration, Prison services, the Military, Emergency health and safety teams from, AngloGold Ashanti Iduapriem Mine, Goldfields Ghana.
The teams used the safety standard methods of rescuing accident victims to save the victims. The fire was first quenched before they moved ahead to put in the necessary measure to rescue the victims safely.
In his speech, the Coordinator for DEM HUB UMaT, Dr Eric Stemn said “the aim of the hub is to enhance stakeholder preparedness and promote coordination among stakeholders in disaster and emergency management. We work with teams from both the public and private sectors in a number of activities that have over the years been helpful in achieving this purpose”.
He explained that the Emergency Simulation Exercise organized as part of the celebration is gradually becoming one of the largest among stakeholders in Disaster and Emergency Management in the country adding that “the inclusion of the Ghana Armed Forces in this year’s emergency simulation ex is another feat in our quest to ensure wider stakeholder engagement”.
At a symposium at the UMaT main auditorium after the simulation exercise, the Vice Chancellor of UMaT, Prof Richard Kwesi Amankwa noted that this third time the university is celebrating the day.
He expressed his appreciation to stakeholders who bought into the idea to celebrate the day, adding that this agenda will be useful to communities and the government as a whole.
Prof Amankwaa urged the public not to go to accident scenes if they of not have any knowledge of safety, rather they should allow professionals to do that.
A health and safety practitioner, Mr Charles Opoku Amoateng underscored the need for health and safety at work.
He described the World Day for Safety and Health at Work as Christmas for safety because safety has a lot of benefits for every industry, hence the promotion of safety in the whole world to highlight the things to do to remain safe.
He said safety is all about discipline through the adherence to safety measures at homes and workplaces.
Mining companies that participated in the celebration, Goldfields Ghana Ltd, Tarkwa Mine, Anglogold Ashanti Iduapriem Mine, Ghana Manganese Company, and Future Global Resources were given the opportunity to describe how they managed real safety incidents that happened in the mines.
As part of the celebration, a panel discussion was held to discuss the theme for the celebration; “a safe and healthy working environment is a fundamental principle and right at work”.
