Scope of Services
Fire dangers
Safety and protection from fire dangers are one of the priorities of occupational safety and health team who applies the principle of prevention is better than cure. Preventing fire causes and strict application of the Hospital’s policies reduce the danger of fire to the minimum, with the constant monitoring, inspecting, and testing of all the fire early detection systems, and firefighting systems to ensure their function ability when needed.
Securing generators
To ensure patient safety in the departments of high risk area such as Operation Rooms (OR), Intensive Care Units (ICUs) and others, the occupational safety and health team follows up and monitors electricity generators and their functioning ability in case of power off, and also the availability of fuel diesel to operate the generators
Water quality
One of the occupational safety and health team’s most important roles is monitoring the quality of drinking and dialysis water , through tests for chemicals and microbes that are conducted periodically, whether in the Hospital or in the Ministry of Health’s central labs or in the National Research Center.
Medical and nonmedical gases
We are also keen to ensure the safety of the places and departments where medical gases exist, especially oxygen, to ensure its continuous availability and protect the health of the medical team who deals with these gases.
Securing nonmedical gasses such as natural gas which is used as fuel for boilers and in the kitchen, and reducing the natural gas dangers through periodic inspection of all gas feeding valves, and the monitoring of gas leaks early detection sensors.
Lab Safety Program
Our duties also include evaluating of risk assessment in the medical, pathology, and research labs, through following safety measures of storage, transportation, handling and safe final disposal of hazardous materials and waste.
Securing labs
Our duties also include evaluating the dangers in the medical labs, pathology labs, and research labs, through following safety measures of storage, transportation, handling, and safe disposal of hazardous materials.
Radiation Safety Program
As for the radiation departments, there are all kinds of dangers of diagnostic radiation, such as those of the CT, and therapeutic radiation such as those of the linear accelerator and radioactive isotopes which are used for diagnosis or therapy. Hence, there is a direct cooperation between the radiation Safety Officer and the occupational safety and health team, through applying the radiation protection program while ensuring to measure individual exposure every 3 months for all of those who are exposed to radiation danger, to ensure that the degree of radiation is within the allowed limits according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, and also following up on employees through periodic medical checkups.
Waste Management Program
There is a direct cooperation between Infection control and occupational safety& health departments to contribute to the success of managing hazardous waste system in the hospital, through applying the hospital’s policy in following up and monitoring the stages of dealing with hazardous waste, starting by separating it at the source, handling it, temporary storing it then safe disposal, paying attention to environmental requirements and preventing and reducing infection spread.
CCHE 57357 is the first hospital in Egypt that works on separating infectious waste from hazardous chemical waste. There is also a unit for infectious waste treatment through chopping and sterilization machine to prevent burning it and the emission of toxic gases that may cause cancer. An important role of the occupational safety and health department is to ensure that the chopped and sterilized waste is free of infection causes and heavy elements to prevent environmental pollution. This is implemented through conducting a weekly testing in the Hospital and a monthly in the Ministry of Health central labs, there is also a testing for heavy elements every 6 months through environmental monitoring.
Work environment
Hospital 57357 is committed to protecting its manpower through the provision of a safe and risk- free work environment. Hence, the occupational safety and health team, in cooperation with some third parties, conduct environmental measurements such as over-all air quality throughout the Hospital, including operation and bone marrow transplantation rooms and ICU. They also measure the levels of noise, vibration, lighting, heat stress, air quality, concentration of volatile organic matter and emissions from generators and boilers
Construction work
Construction and renovation work in general may result in many risks. Hence, there is cooperation between the occupational safety and health, infection control and project management teams to reduce the risks resulted from constructions or renovations in the Hospital to the minimum, while conducting required measurements to ensure that the operation of the hospital is not affected by these renovations. An example of the dangers is the spread of dust resulting from construction works and waste resulting from demolition, hazardous materials used, smoking and bad worker behaviors.
Emergency plan
The occupational safety and health team plays an important role in developing and evaluating the Hospital’s emergency plan, and developing a scenario for each risk separately, and evaluate and test this plan periodically.
Awareness
The occupational safety and health team plays an important role in raising awareness among employees, visitors and patients, regarding occupational safety and health standards in the Hospital, through traditional methods such as lectures, on job training, drills and unconventional methods in cooperation with the Hospital’s media department by broadcasting a set of information through the screens and internal sound system, to increase the awareness about safety and occupational health.