Medical Officer recommends twice yearly medical screening

Ho, June 17, GNA - Dr John Eleeza, Ho Municipal Director of Health, has recommended that employers institute a twice-yearly routine medical screening for their workers to enable them track their wellbeing as they laboured for them.

He said often people retired from work half fit for any meaningful living because of failure of employers to ensure their workers operated in good environment.

Dr Eleeza was a giving a talk on Occupational Safety and Health at the 50th Anniversary Meeting of the Public Services Workers Union ( PSWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Ho Branch, in Ho. He said it was the responsibility of an employer to ensure the highest degree of physical, mental and social wellbeing of workers in all occupations.

Dr Eleeza said the work type and schedule determined the conditions, which must be within the moral, economic and legal confines, appropriate to tackle associated hazards of the various jobs. He said some workers worked in squalid surroundings, in extreme temperatures, poorly lighted rooms, assigned to furniture inappropriate to their heights to the detriment of their health. Dr Eleeza said some would complain endlessly of muscular-skeletal problems because of the poor sitting position at their offices. He said some workers, by their habits of not unwinding, refusing vacations, dropping safety gadgets, "invest in sickness," which eventually flourish to harm them. Dr Eleeza said pre-employment medical checks were crucial baselines to determine the extent to which a worker's health could have been affected by conditions at the workplace. Mr Maxwell Akoto-Mireku, Volta Regional Secretary of the TUC, blamed the poor conditions under which workers worked on the often dormant work place workers' interest groups. He said while some Human Resource Managers showed keen interest in the welfare of their workers others did not, either because of cost, sheer negligence or sloppy management traditions. Mr Akoto-Mireku said there was the need for continual management/employee dialogue to ensure good work place environment for workers.