The World Day for Safety and Health at Work and Worker’s Memorial Day were marked around the world yesterday (28 April) providing everyone everywhere the opportunity to raise awareness of safety and health in workplaces as well as remember those who died from work-related illness or injury.
Promoted in WA by the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety, the International Labour Organisation sets a theme for the day which was ‘Anticipate, prepare and respond to crises: Invest now in resilient Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) systems.’
“This acknowledges the impact that the global COVID-19 pandemic has had on our working lives and the importance of building an effective, resilient, and adaptable work health and safety (WHS) framework,” the Department said.
The day was also supported by Safe Work Australia which said that while the number of work-related fatalities in Australia had been steadily decreasing over the past decade, any workplace death was tragic and unacceptable.
“The latest finalised data shows that in 2019, 183 workers were fatally injured at work,” Safe Work Australia said.
“By raising awareness of work health and safety issues and taking action to eliminate or minimise health and safety risks at work, we can help prevent further work-related fatalities and injuries.”
It said workplaces could do this with risk management that was planned, systematic and covered all reasonably foreseeable hazards and associated risks.
