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More holistic action needed at the workplace | Mark Gauci
CEO of the Occupational Health and Safety Authority discusses the role of the authority at the workplace and more holistic organisation is needed to avoid fatal accidents.
11 March 2012, 12:00am
Julia Farrugia
Julia Farrugia
1 min read
CEO of the Occupational Health and Safety Authority Mark Gauci
In an interview with Illum, CEO of the Occupational Health and Safety Authority Mark Gauci said that there was a need for more holistic action and coordination during the initial stages of projects to prevent accidents instead of waiting for them to happen.
Having worked with the authority for the last 23 years, Gauci has noted an impressive change in its mentality regarding health and safety on the workplace since 1989.
“I was invited to a seminar in 1989 to give a presentation about occupational health and safety and I remember a prominent trade-unionist shouting that workers wanted work,” Gauci said.
Gauci explained that while there have been advances in the mentality regarding safety on the job since then, one still hears about fatal accidents at the workplace but says this phenomenon is not unique to Malta.
“Accidents and deaths happen abroad too. When comparing statistics, Malta fairs well as a country. Malta’s statistics include each accident, but the majority of European countries only record cases where workers take three days of sick leave or more and don't include accidents involving foreign workers… Malta still compares well despite differences in records,” Gauci said.
But, Gauci said this was no reason for Malta to feel proud with three deaths on the workplace already occurring during the first three months of 2012.
Read the full interview here on the Illum digital edition.
Julia Farrugia is a former editor of Illum newspaper.
Joseph MELI •
Whilst every single person at the workplace is responsible for his/her own safety it is the onerous burden and ukltimate responsiblity and duty of obligation of the OHSA to ensure,maintain and enforce that all safety measures at the workplace are in place and monitored and scrutinised robustly,stringently and regularly .A fact that the OHSA-CEO,Mark Gauci, continually and persistently fails to recognise or advise ,instead preferring to deflect this responsibility on all other stakeholders with this so-called "holistic' approach,whatever that implies, and how is his authority achieving this aim and objective?What sense of purpose does making comparisons with overseas health and safety incidents or fatalities as comparisons are invariably odius and ineffective.He should concentrate solely on those in Malta and why his authority never promulgates the conclusions to these workplace incidents or fatalities ,for these critical results are generally brushed under the carpet or at least never discussd further.
