Hazard control protocols in the fight against COVID -19 in Ghana

NEWS COMMENTARY ON HAZARD CONTROL MEASURES IN FIGHTING COVID-19 IN GHANA, HOW FAR?

During Risk Assessment in the standard practice of the Health, Safety and Environment profession, a team of experts identify and manage “potential” hazards. In this line of duty, there is what is called the “Hierarchy of Hazard Control” which guides the experts often comprising Officers, Engineers and Managers of Safety in their approach to managing hazards. A typical Hierarchy of Hazard Control starts with Elimination as the most effective control method followed by Substitution in a descending order, Engineering, Isolation or Separation, Administration and Personal Protective Equipment, PPE as the least effective control protocol in managing hazards.

Pertinently, in Ghana’s fight against the coronavirus, the first four preceding control measures have fairly been seen in the public education and sensitisation, food security measures, availability of water, security reinforcement, territorial surveillance, mandatory quarantine, social distancing protocols, lockdown, law enforcements, contact tracings and testing, genome sequencing and vaccine or cure search that the government has proffered. PPE is only effective and efficient when all the preceding four control protocols are also observed. Painstakingly using PPE ensures some level of safety but it is important to understand that PPE alone is not the surest guarantee to maximum safety in these times.

Nonetheless, in the ease of Ghana’s partial lockdown measures amidst pre-existing restrictions that still remain binding on some civilians, it is important that achievements chalked up so far are jealously safeguarded. And these cannot be whiles the essence of the control protocols are likely to be misconstrued or compromised by only holding strongly to PPE as a “boarding pass”, and might not have eventually re-located those still under social restrictions quite from their usual social spaces only to allow them unrestricted access to other hyperactive social spaces. And this would have been wholly adversarial to the spirit and letter of our struggles.

Thus far, still counting the losses and casualties sustained both internally and internationally, it is important to frequently remind ourselves that given our circumstance in a global pandemic, we are not fighting a territorial host but a monstrous empire of invisible assailant that is innately specialised in ruthless extermination and could easily overwhelm us by its complexity.

Going forward, the pandemic brings to the fore the essence of passing the Occupational Health and Safety Bill which will be further informed and guided by the lessons learnt from COVID-19. Parliament must diligently work on this all important bill to see the light of day. The much anticipated Act which would establish the National Occupational Safety and Health Authority, NOSHA should among other things sanction and provide legal definition of such keywords as “Frontline Workers” and their due compensation in the face of hazards and adversity in their line of duty. Ghana’s anticipated NOSHA would parallel the likes of the Health and Safety Executive of the UK and the Occupation Safety and Health Administration of the US that operates alongside the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health which unlike the former, is governed by the American Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

So why would Ghana’s case be any different if we stand to benefit from a similar framework? While we wait for the promulgation of such an Act let us join voices in saluting all our gallant frontline personnel for their commitment to save lives and may God continue to bless our Motherland.

BY: MATTHIAS ASARE-DARKO, LABORATORY SAFETY SPECIALIST.