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HeartWood
No. 6 (2010)
12 PAGES OF SCIENCE, REVIEWS AND OPINIONS
PROTECTIVE CLOTHING –
THE LAST LINE OF DEFENCE
by Walter Mapanda, SPGS Plantations’ Technical Advisor
Use of Personal Protective Clothing b) Protective equipment such as safety
(PPE) makes hazards at the work goggles and respirators (Health Working
place more manageable. Provisions Lives, 2010).
of PPE coupled with PPE training Forestry has consistently been one of the
programmes enhance employees feelings
about the level of safety and security
within their work environment which in
turn improves the organisation’s business
most hazardous industries in the world. For
example, in 2008 the United States logging
industry employed 86 000 workers of which
93 died as a result of accidents associated
performance. PPE provision and training with forestry operations. This resulted in
programmes improve productivity by a fatality rate of 108.1 deaths per 100 000
minimizing worker and process downtime
(Reliable Plant, 2010). Small investment in
PPE and PPE training serves the employers
a lot of money by offsetting costs resulting
workers which is more than 30 times higher
than the overall fatality rate in workplaces
of 3.5 deaths per 100 000 in the US in 2008
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
from injuries, chronic health problems and 2010). British Columbia Forest Safety
potential workplace fatalities.
Unfortunately, however, in Uganda there are
few employers who provide their employees
Council (2010) compiled five year fatalities
statistics for harvesting operations shown in
Table 1 below.
Table 1. Fatalities in Harvesting in British Columbia 2006-2010
HARVESTING OPERATION
YEAR
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Log Hauling 5 1 3 0 2
Yarding / Mechanised Harvesting 2 4 0 1 0
Travelling to and from work 0 3 3 0 0
Manual Tree Felling 0 1 8 2 0
Other 4 2 2 1 0
Direct Fatalities Total 11 11 16 4 2
Source: British Columbia Safety Council (August 2010)
IN THIS ISSUE:
• Investment Opportunities
for Tree Growers in Uganda
• Training Needs Report
• New Tree Species for Trials
in Uganda
• Lots of Interesting Reviews
with PPE. Most of those that provide PPE
do so without linking it to other measures
which protect workers from health and safety
hazards. This article defines PPE, explains
the importance of PPE and the relationship
of PPE to other health and safety protection
measures.
PPE is all equipment (including clothing
affording protection against the weather)
which is intended to be worn or held by a
person at work which protects them against
one or more risks to their health and safety.
PPE includes:
a) Protective clothing such as safety shoes,
hard hats, overalls, gloves, high visibility
waistcoats and clothing which protects
against the weather.
From the above results it is clear that most
fatalities occured in log hauling and manual
tree felling section. Workers compensation
premiums are affected by injury frequency as
well as severity. Therefore, the more injuries
a company has, the higher is its premiums.
PPE and PPE training reduces injury frequency
and severity (Benjamin, 2010).
An injury that could occur in a forestry
organization would consist of “direct”
and “indirect” costs. Direct costs include
ambulance services, emergency room care,
examination by a doctor, medication,
hospitalization and temporary disability
benefits. Indirect costs are normally
approximated to be three or four times the
direct cost.
Walter at the SPGS Clients’ Meet, July, 2010
Indirect costs include the following:
• Cost of lost time of the injured employee.
• Cost of lost time of the employees who
stopped work to attend to the injured.
• Cost of lost time to conduct an
investigation.
• Cost of training a new employee to fill in
for the injured employee.
• Cost of training the injured employee to
perform a new job while recovering.
• Cost due to damage to machinery, tools,
and other property.
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