Ministry of Labour Celebrates World Day for Safety and Health at Work

Doha, April 28 (QNA) - The Ministry of Labour held a celebration today to mark the World Day for Safety and Health at Work , which falls on April 28 every year, in the presence of a number of senior state officials, employers, a large gathering of workers and heads of foreign communities in the country. The celebration aims to enhance the role of occupational health and safety, to focus on the safety and health of workers and to reduce accidents and injuries at the workplace. Director of the Inspection Department at the Ministry of Labour has stressed Qatar's care for applying the international Criteria of Occupational Safety and Health, pointing out that Qatar Labour Law has cared for the need to apply the requirements of occupational health and safety at the workplace and workers housing to ensure legal articles that require owners of companies to apply these requirements, including guidance and counseling. Opening the ceremony, Al Ghanim said the Occupational Safety and Health section at the Inspection Department, which includes trained inspectors and specialists, monitors the implementation of these requirements through periodic and surprise inspection as well as awareness and media campaigns so as to reduce the risk of the work environment, to reduce rates of occupational diseases and work-related injuries and to ensure the provision of workers with health care and adequate housing. He added that the provision of a working environment safe from the various work risks and raise the upgrading the efficiency of preventive means will lead to the reduction of occupational injuries and diseases, protect workers from accidents and subsequently reduce the man-hours without lost time as a result of absence due to illness. Al Ghanim said that also reduces the cost of treatment, rehabilitation and compensation for occupational diseases and injuries which reflect on the improvement and increase of production and in pushing forward the economic power of the state. He further noted that the celebration of the World Day for Occupational Safety and Health is designed to shed the light on the right of labours to work in a safe work environment, away from the causes of injuries, accidents and diseases. For his part, Dr. Mohamed Ali Al-Hajj, head of the Occupational Health Section at the Supreme Council of Health underlined the Council's attention to occupational safety and health, pointing out that the theme of this year's Occupational Health celebration is the prevention of occupational diseases, adding that the Council will organize a number of events in cooperation with the Ministry of Labour during next May which will mainly focus on occupational health diseases and how to prevent them. During the ceremony, a special presentation was made by the Labour Inspection Department 's experts on occupational health and safety. The Interior Ministry's Civil Defense Department also explained how to use the means of firefighting, reviewed the causes of accidents, the risk of falls, occupational diseases and means of prevention against them. The International Labour Organization (ILO) celebrates the World Day for Safety and Health at Work on the 28 April to promote the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases globally. It is an awareness-raising campaign intended to focus international attention on emerging trends in the field of occupational safety and health and on the magnitude of work-related injuries, diseases and fatalities worldwide. The 28th of April is also a day in which the world's trade union movement holds its international Commemoration Day for Dead and injured Workers to honour the memory of victims of occupational accidents and diseases and organize worldwide mobilizations and campaigns on this date. (QNA)