The joint publication encourages countries to strengthen the protection of health workers by improving the management of occupational health and safety at national, sub-national and health facility levels
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) released a new guide February 22, 2022, for health workers even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage for a third year.
The guide deals with developing and implementing stronger occupational health and safety programmes for health workers, according to a WHO statement.
It also recommended developing and implementing sustainable programmes for managing occupational health and safety for health workers at national, sub-national and health facility levels.
Such programmes should cover all occupational hazards — infectious, ergonomic, physical, chemical, and psycho-social, the statement said.
The guide also outlined the roles that governments, employers, workers and occupational health services should play in promoting and protecting the health, safety and wellbeing of health workers.
It emphasised that continuous investment, training, monitoring and collaboration were essential for sustaining progress in implementing the programmes.
“COVID-19 has exposed the cost of the systemic lack of safeguards for the health, safety and well-being of health workers. In the first 18 months of the pandemic, about 115,500 health workers died from COVID-19,” James Campbell, director WHO Health Workforce Department, was quoted as saying in the statement.
It added that countries that had developed and were actively implementing occupational health and safety programmes for health workers, had experienced reductions in work-related injuries and diseases and sickness absence, as well as improvements in the work environment, work productivity and retention of health workers.
“Effective mechanisms should be put in place to ensure continuous collaboration between employers, managers and health workers, with the aim of protecting health and safety at work,” Alette van Leur, director, ILO Sectoral Policies Department, said.
“Health workers, like all other workers, should enjoy their right to decent work, safe and healthy working environments and social protection for health care, sickness absence and occupational diseases and injuries,” she added.
“Such programmes are a core element for the effective management of occupational safety and health, as informed by ILO Convention No. 187 and provide an opportunity for coordinated action by all stakeholders through social dialogue towards common objectives for promoting decent work in the health sector and increasing the resilience of health institutions,” Vera Paquete-Perdigao, director, ILO Governance and Tripartism Department, said.
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A healthworker in Rajasthan notes details about the spread of COVID-19 in Beawar, Rajasthan. Photo: iStock.png)
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