Sep 2016

Focus
on Business
Five things to know about workplace
health and safety in the optics industry
The Health and Safety and Work Act
(HSWA) came into effect in April
2016. Since health and safety at work
is relevant for every individual in every
workplace, it is timely to find out how those
in the ophthalmic industry can be affected by
its provisions.
1. Your company is likely to be a PCBU
(Persons Conducting a Business or
Undertaking)
The name sounds deceiving but your
business will be a PCBU under the new
legislation, meaning it has the ’primary duty
of care’ to ensure, so far as is reasonably
practicable, the health and safety (H&S) of its
workers and that others are not put at risk by
its activities. This new terminology replaces
the previous “employer” obligations.
In essence every workplace is required
to meet a basic duty of care to its workers,
clients or customers and visitors to their
place of business, to ensure they are healthy
and safe during the time they spend on your
premises. You also owe a duty to ensure
that the H&S of members of public, and
those in the vicinity, are not affected by your
operations.
Importantly, there are penalties and fines
for PCBUs who fail to fulfill their duties
under the Act, and they don’t come lightly
(the maximum fine for Reckless Conduct for
a PCBU is $3 million, for an ‘Officer’ a $600K
fine or five years in prison or both, and for
an individual, a $300K fine or five years in
prison or both).
Pragmatically, if your business already has
H&S systems in place, the new legislation
won’t change much for you. There are new
definitions, new requirements for managing
overlapping duties with other PCBUs and
other refinements, however the changes
should mean a revision rather than an
overhaul of your current system.
2. Owners and managers are likely to be
‘Officers’
If you are the owner of your business, or in a
senior position eg. the managing director or
chief executive, then you are likely to be an
Officer under the Act. This means you have
some influence over policy or investment
decisions of the business and therefore need
to exercise due diligence to ensure that the
company (PCBU) is operated in such a way to
meet its H&S obligations.
Meeting your Officer obligations is more
than just having a H&S management
system in place. You need to understand
the risks involved in the business, and
take measures to ensure that the system
is in fact working, on an ongoing basis.
These form the basis of your due diligence
obligations. You cannot claim that you have
taken ‘reasonable steps’ after playing a
BY KIMBERLEY LAWRY
Dry eye: what’s new
passive role or merely taking an interest in
health and safety at work.
3. Size of your business is irrelevant – your
duties remain the same
Whether you are an eye care professional in
a solo practice or working with many others
in a large setting, you need to meet the
obligations in the Act. You can’t contract out
of the requirements and nor can you take
insurance to cover the penalties or liabilities.
The easiest way to ensure you comply is to
have a robust H&S system in place, and it’s
likely to be easier than you think to comply.
4. Understanding the risks – your company
hazard register is key
One of the key obligations is to understand
the risks involved in your business and to
have a plan in place to mitigate or control
those risks. Typically, this is achieved through
developing a hazard register and ensuring all
workers, contractors and other persons are
aware of any hazards that are present in your
business.
5. Have an H&S system in place and train staff
All workers have obligations under the act
and it’s the company’s responsibility to
ensure staff are inducted and trained into the
H&S system. This typically covers hazards,
workers involvement in hazard identification,
emergency procedures, reporting incidents
and accident and workers and the companies
H&S responsibilities.
Obviously this requires you to have a
system in place in order for you to train your
workers (and contractors who may work for
you). If you have something in place already,
it’s timely to review this in line with the
changes to the Act.
If you are starting out or yet to get
something in place then the time to start
this is now. The costs for non-compliance are
high and for most companies the initial H&S
investment to set up your system can be
offset by annual ACC levy savings.
If you want any support or help to help set
this up contact us on 0800 474 769 or
www.hrhealthandsafety.co.nz
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
* Kimberley Lawry is
managing director of
HR Health and Safety
Limited – specialists
in supporting NZ
businesses to easily
navigate Health and
Safety and staff issues.
www.hrhealthandsafety.
co.nz
NZ Optics’ October issue will include a very special feature on dry eye with
all the latest thinking and research from New Zealand and overseas. Peerreviewed
and curated with the help of Associate Professor Jennifer Craig, New
Zealand’s own internationally-renowned dry eye specialist, and vice-chair
of the global initiative DEWS II (Dry Eye Workshop II), the feature will reveal
some of the cutting edge research going on in our own country and debate
some of the views held on dry eye through a number of carefully-selected,
contributed articles from some of New Zealand’s, and Australia’s, leading
thinkers on this hot topic.
If you care about dry eye and making sure you’re up to speed with all the
latest thinking, don’t miss NZ Optics’ October issue.
Movement-based eye tests
for children
Testing children’s eyes is tricky at the best of times,
but with non-verbal pre-schoolers it is almost
impossible.
“Specialists agree early intervention gives the
best chance of a good outcome in the treatment of
amblyopia,” says Dr Jason Turuwhenua, a research
fellow at the School of Optometry and Vision Science at
the University of Auckland. “But young children don’t
respond well to eye charts as they’re not familiar with
the letters, and it requires a subjective response they
aren’t able to give yet.”
Dr Turuwhenua is an engineer who became interested
in the application of engineering methods in resolving
vision problems. Along with vision scientist, Associate
Professor Ben Thompson they began working on
creating a system to accurately test the sight of young
children. In October 2015 they were awarded almost
a million dollars over two years in funding from the
Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment.
“Our system, which can be used for children as young
as two years, uses optokinetic reflex, an involuntary
motion of the eye that occurs when watching a moving
scene or pattern,” explains Dr Turuwhenua. “In our
system we envisage that a child would watch a screen
and we measure their eye movements – if they display
the reflex they would pass, and if they don’t display the
It can be easy to get stuck in a professional silo,
but research lead by physicist Dr Frederique
Vanholsbeeck is a reminder that no man – or
specialism - is an island. Her team, based in the
University of Auckland’s physics department, are
working on the development of new differentiation
tools in optical coherence tomography (OCT).
“OCT is a versatile and unique technique with
many applications,” explains Dr Vanholsbeeck. “But it
lacks discrimination in key areas. We are monitoring
chromatic dispersion and tissue stiffness and looking
at how new analysis and measuring techniques can
offer more accurate results to differentiate tissue or
detect early signs of diseases.”
Chromatic dispersion blurs the contours in
OCT images, making it hard to gain accurate
measurements of choroidal thickness. But by
combining sophisticated data analysis techniques
with a new optical laser, Dr Vanholsbeeck is aiming to
enhance the accuracy, and therefore the value of OCT.
“If you analyse the light after it has interacted
with tissue, you can extract information about your
sample such as its composition,” says the Brusselsborn
physicist who studied nonlinear optics as part
of her PhD before moving into biomedical imaging
and biophotonics. “We have a Marsden Research
grant [awarded November 2015] and a team of
five, including an optometrist, a post-doc and two
students as well as overseas collaborators. We
already have results and will be publishing our first
paper soon.”
The potential of this research goes beyond simply
improving OCT imaging systems. The results will
enable clinicians to look deep into their patient’s eye,
Dr Jason Turuwhenua
A/Prof Ben Thompson
reflex then it would be indicative of a problem that
requires further investigation.”
The work dovetails with research from Professor
Steven Dakin’s group in the same school, who have
worked with adults to show that the optokinetic reflex
mirrors people’s subjective experience of motion.
“Our findings show that eye-movement based tests
of acuity and contrast-sensitivity are valid substitutes
for tests relying on the patients’ own response.” says
Professor Dakin whose work will appear later this year
in the journal Scientific Reports.
Dr Turuwhenua notes that these tests could be
used to measure refractive error and his team are also
looking at the potential to develop an app. They are
aiming to have the test available for use in a clinical
setting within two years. ▀
Physics meets ophthalmology
Frederique Vanholsbeek is pairing physics and ophthalmology
leading to potential new therapeutic applications
globally.
If you’re a student interested in working with Dr
Vanholsbeeck, contact her by email; f.vanholsbeeck@
auckland.ac.nz or check out more about her research
group at www.biophotonics-newzealand.com ▀
Blue light crusade for Geoff Parker
Parker & Co optometrist
Geoff Parker has got
behind the new Essilor
campaign to promote their
Eyezen lenses, designed to
block out harmful blue light.
In a consumer press release,
he warns that strained
vision, headaches and sleep
deprivation are all linked to
high-energy blue light emitted
by flat screens.
“What we are seeing now is
that concentrated numbers of
hours spent in intensive screen
time while gaming, and even
long work days, are causing
noticeable symptoms in device
users,” he says in the release.
“Essentially, over-exposure to
that blue light - which occurs on the light spectrum
next to harmful invisible ultraviolet light - could
cause significant, long term damage”.
Also of concern is recent research showing 90% of
Geoff Parker from Parker & Co optometrists, is
supporting Essilor’s blue light awareness campaign
technology users are working
across multiple screens for
everyday activities, again
increasing their risk of harm
from blue light, he says.
“According to one study, 75%
of people who use two or more
devices simultaneously report
experiencing symptoms of
digital eye strain compared to
only 53% of people who use
just one device at a time. There
are strong suspicions that highenergy
blue light could cause
damage to the macula. That is
what is now being researched
globally.”
The consumer-facing
educational campaign, driven
by Impact PR on behalf of
Essilor, is aiming to educate younger people about
the potential dangers of blue light, while offering
Eyezen as one potential, modern solution. It was
launched in Australia and New Zealand in August. ▀
Photograph: Stephane Coen
8 NEW ZEALAND OPTICS September 2016