Guidelines for promoting occupational health and safety in the small scale woodworking industry in Fako division of Cameroon

Abstract

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that more than 2.3 million workers die yearly from work related accidents and diseases and this is probably an underestimation. Estimates indicate that occupational accidents are a serious problem in the world. The aim of this study is to investigate the nature and magnitude of health and safety challenges affecting workers in small-scale and informal woodworking enterprises and to develop guidelines for improvement.

As a quantitative research, the exploratory-descriptive and contextual designs were used to conduct this research. Snowball sampling was used to collect data from all the 223 workers working in 88 small-scale and informal wood processing industries in Tiko, Mutengene, Buea, Ekona, and Muyuka areas from July 4th to 30th, 2016, using a structured interview and an inspection checklist. Data entry and cleaning was done using excel and exported to Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 20.0 for analyses.

The findings revealed that a majority of the woodworkers were males, young and inexperienced, mainly trained through apprenticeship and worked for long hours. There was generally lack of knowledge and poor practices of occupational health and safety among respondents. The findings also showed a very high self-reported injury rate of 86.1% among woodworkers within the past 12 months which was significantly associated (P<0.05) with woodworkers’ age and practice of OHS. Major occupational injuries reported by the respondents include cut, sprain, backache, chronic joint, fracture of the upper and lower limbs and burns. The major sources of injuries included carelessness, insufficient use of PPE and fatigue caused by overworking.

Further findings showed that most study sites did not comply with the Cameroon OHS Order No. 039/MTPS/IMT of 26 August 1984 as over half of the study’s workshops had narrow walkways with obstacle and were situated in dilapidated structures. Most workers were exposed to high vibration and noise, excessive heat and cold, hazardous chemicals and ergonomic hazards.

The study thus recommends that effective measures be put in place to curb work-related injury rate by enhancing health and safety promotion programmes with emphasis on pre-employment OHS training for newly recruited workers, respect the 8 hours per day allocated for work, provide workers with suitable PPE, as well as other accompanying supplies such as appropriate fire extinguishers and first aids.