The best way to do it?
Sophie, an experienced healthcare professional, suffered a shoulder injury when she was lifting a patient. Despite the treatments received, she has a functional limitation. More specifically, she cannot raise her arm past a certain angle. Sophie is expecting that the evaluation of her workstation will show that she can no longer perform her usual work, because she is convinced that she cannot put up IV solutions at the height that she considers necessary.
Surprise! Although she has always put the IV pole very high, the ergonomist from the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail (CSST) who evaluated her position explained to her that the height needed to ensure an appropriate drip rate of the solution depends on the pump and not the height of the solution. There is therefore no need for her to lift her arm higher than her shoulder to carry out this task.
This example demonstrates one thing: our ways of doing things are often, even very often, guided by habits that we no longer question, by reflexes that we are more or less aware of, by knowledge that we do not question. Might they even be based on “traditions” so widespread that we do not doubt their logic or their effectivness. And yet, is this really the case? These ways of doing things, are they still the best, the most appropriate or the safest for our patients, and also for us?
It is sometimes advisable to re-evaluate our work practices to ensure that they are still appropriate, as some may be counter-productive or, worse, present a danger to our health and safety. Or, as in the case of Sophie, lead us to believe that we cannot do it any other way.
In each one of our work settings, if we are confronted with similar realities the ways of dealing with them can differ from one place to another or from one professional to another. As the popular saying goes, we sometimes cannot see the forest for the trees!
These innovations, simple as they are, must be shared! Be contagious with your great ideas! The Association paritaire pour la santé et la sécurité du travail du secteur affaires sociales (ASSTSAS) can be a starting point for the recognition of those innovations. In fact, every year, the ASSTSAS organizes the Pleins feux sur l’innovation en SST competition, in which you can participate by making your great ideas known.
Moreover, in matters of innovation, the OHS Committee is not standing still. At the last FIQ Convention, the delegates adopted its proposal to set up a pilot project for creating a network of OHS union representatives over the next year. This network would be an appropriate venue for the sharing of knowledge and good practices in matters of occupational health and safety. This will make it possible to address OHS issues in a different way, to think outside the box, to be innovative!
The OHS Committee sincerely hopes that this initiative will encourage the promotion of occupational health and safety with the members of the FIQ.
Do you know ?
The ASSTASS publishes the magazine Objectif prévention, five times a year free, and it is possible to subscribe to it.
Isabelle Groulx, member of the FIQ OHS Committee, sits on the ASSTSAS board of directors.
A review of practices can be applied to the entire work environment, both physical and psychological.
The first Network of OHS union representatives at the FIQ will be held in the fall of 2015.
An ergonomist has the responsibility of seeing to it that the workstation of a person is compatible with her limits, capacities and needs.