Canadian Safety Reporter

May 2019

Focuses on occupational health and safety issues at a strategic level. Designed for employers, HR managers and OHS professionals, it features news, case studies on best practices and practical tips to ensure the safest possible working environment.

Issue link: https://digital.hrreporter.com/i/1103949

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 0 of 7

Safety Reporter Canadian www.safety-reporter.com May 2019 Train engineer gets one more chance after collision Collision in rail yard was third incident within a year, but years of service and promotions were mitigating factors BY JEFFREY R. SMITH AN ARBITRATOR has reinstated a railway worker who was fired after a collision in a train yard that was the worker's third significant incident within one year. The worker was hired by Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in 2004 to work in its engineering services department. Three years later, he was promoted to the position of conductor and in 2012 became a locomotive engineer. The worker was involved in an incident in May 2016 that led to a written warning in lieu of a 30-day suspension. A few months later, Old machinery not a hazard with proper maintenance: Board Employer's regular inspections and maintenance of aging equipment was sufficient to ensure safety of operators, says labour relations board BY JEFFREY R. SMITH A NOVA SCOTIA company re- sponded to and effectively dealt with an employee's ongoing complaints about an aging and deteriorating platform lift in its plant, the Nova Scotia Labour Relations Board has ruled. Mason Moore was an assis- tant press operator for Louisi- ana-Pacific Canada, a company that runs a mill producing wet- process hardboard for exterior siding for buildings. Louisiana- Pacific's plant was located in East River, N.S., and featured two hydraulic lifts — the operator lift and assistant operator lift — that SEXUALLY HARASSED WORKER GETS $60,000+ Federal agency's response to harassment complaint immediate, but then slowed to a crawl pg. 3 THE ROAD TO REGULATION Associations across Canada are seeking self-regulation for the profession; but how will this impact OHS professionals themselves? pg. 5 INSIDE NEWS BRIEF Lift > pg. 4 Credit: Shutterstock/ndoeljindoel Engineer > pg. 2 PM #40065782 ERRORS WITH HOSPITAL GLOVES SPREAD BACTERIA (Reuters Health) — Healthcare workers caring for infectious pa- tients sometimes make mistakes when removing personal protec- tive garments, resulting in contam- ination with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a small study shows. Over a six-month period, re- searchers collected 6,000 sam- ples around ICUs. They also tested the healthcare workers' hands, gloves and gowns before and af- ter patient interactions. They also watched the "doffing," or removal process, of gowns and gloves. They found that more than a third of the healthcare workers acquired a multidrug-resistant organism dur- ing a patient encounter, including on hands, clothes, stethoscopes, and in-hospital mobile phones. About 70 per cent of sites had organisms. Overall, 39 per cent of workers made multiple doffing errors and were more likely to have contami- nated clothes after a patient inter- action. In particular, hand contami- nation was 10 times higher when gloves were removed before gowns. Interventions that reinforce the preferred doffing order could reduce contamination, said lead study au- thor Dr. Koh Okamoto of Rush Uni- versity Medical Center in Chicago. DEPRESSED, SUICIDAL POLICE CONSTABLE A SAFETY CONCERN FOR COLLEAGUES OPP followed long process to accommodate constable's mental health issues pg. 6

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of Canadian Safety Reporter - May 2019