Transcript for: Occupational health in the plant
Chris Tigris
An occupational health nurse looks after the health, safety, and tries helping with the wellness of employees. So I would be there as the nurse who would help them if they got hurt, but also proactively try and educate them so they didn't get hurt in the first place.
Eileen Yeandle
In the occupational health you were preventing sickness, through teaching.
I don't mean in the classroom, but teaching people that came in with problems. They may have some health problems themselves, their family may have health problems.
Merlin Beharry
Most of the injury that happened at the plant were repetitive ones.
Barb Heath [repetitive strain]
I'd say probably 80 percent of the injuries were repetitive strain. Trying to get the ladies to come to us as soon as possible. A lot of them were afraid and thought they might get fired if they come to us.
They quite often left them so long that they would be having numbness all the way up their arm.
Sometimes they'd come and be crying. They'd be so desperate by the time they came to us, they had a very bad injury.
We had an ergonomics committee, and we involved people that had been at the plant for years and knew lots of jobs, and had really good suggestions.
Eileen Yeandle
One thing that we did do, we changed the type of chairs that they had at the sewing machine, for all of the sewing machine operators.
When I first started there, the chair they used was just a straight ordinary chair.
Then the chairs that we did get had a different back on them, cushioned seats, and they were adjustable in height.
I was also on the safety committee. We had a safety meeting once a month.
Merlin Beharry
So you would go around once a month all through the plant with your clipboard, and make notes.
If you saw some unsafe situation, you'd bring it to the attention of the supervisor. If by the next month you came around and that situation was not corrected, there would be consequences.
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