Assessment Of Occupational Health And Safety Status Of Central Tongu District Hospital, Adidome

Abstract

Background: Healthcare workers are exposed to myriads of occupational health and safety hazards in the course of work. These hazards arise from many sources and include; biological agents, chemical agents, ergonomic, physical and psychosocial factors in the health facilities. The impact of poor occupational health and safety is felt not just by affected healthcare workers, but also by the patients receiving care in their facilities. The main determinants of occupational health and safety studied include; safety management, safety training, hazards and controls. This study assessed the state of occupational health and safety in the Central Tongu District Hospital by assessing the level of knowledge of safety management, safety training, hazards and controls in the hospital. Method: Descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 155 healthcare workers who were purposively and randomly sampled. The functional and operational management systems for this study were the Occupational Health and Safety Policy and Guidelines for the health sector MOH/GHS, (2010) and the safety and health management system: a roadmap for hospitals OSHA, (2013) respectively. Data were analyzed with STATA version 15; descriptive statistics, chi-square and logistic regression were computed. Analyses: Results indicated that the level of knowledge of safety management is medium, proportion of healthcare workers who had training in OHS was 61% (95/155, p<0.001), the exposure to hazards ranged from, chemical hazards 58% (90/155, p<0.001) to Biological hazards 91% (141/155, p=0.055). The use of controls also ranged from, hand hygiene 27% (42/155, p=0.002) to PPE use 86% (134/155, p=0.001). University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh vi

Conclusion: The study underscored the need for management to improve upon its safety leadership and commitment roles and to step up efforts to enhance safety training in the hospital in compliance with the MOH/GHS (2010) OHS policy. It finally emphasized the hazard-prone nature of the hospital and the controls in use in the hospital. The state of OHS was assessed to be medium.