Every year, thousands of workers are made ill by hazardous substances. The effect on health can be very serious causing both long and short term effects.
Flip the images to see the ways in which a person can be exposed to a harmful substance:
In April 2019, a 25 year old female who was cleaning her oven, was left with nasty chemical burns after failing to rinse oven cleaner off her arm. Her arm became red and swollen, then it started to turn black.
Doctors discovered the oven cleaning fluid was still on her arm and had been slowly burning away her flesh and killing nerve endings. She was referred to a burns unit and surgeons cut away the rotting flesh and performed a skin graft. No picture here – the words are enough!
Here are a few examples of what kind of harm can occur from hazardous substances you might come into contact with:
Let’s think about the people you work with and the duty of care you have at work to protect them from harm.
Have a look at these situations that occurred.
Could they happen in your workplace?
Incident 1:
Incident 2:
Incident 3:
How important do you think this subject is now?
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