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  • Exploring the system capacity to meet occupational health and safety needs: the case of the ready-made garment industry in Bangladesh

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    Author(s)
    Akhter, Sadika
    Rutherford, Shannon
    Chu, Cordia
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Rutherford, Shannon
    Chu, Cordia M.
    Akhter, Sadika
    Year published
    2019
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    Abstract
    Background Since the 2013 Rana Plaza incident in Bangladesh, the government of Bangladesh has been under pressure to improve health and safety conditions for workers in the ready-made garment industry. Its efforts have focused heavily on structural safety of the buildings but have largely ignored broader occupational health system issues. This qualitative study explores contextual factors and system challenges that create barriers for ensuring a healthy and safe workplace in the ready-made garment industry in Bangladesh. Methods Data were collected through key informant interviews (n = 14) with government officials from ...
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    Background Since the 2013 Rana Plaza incident in Bangladesh, the government of Bangladesh has been under pressure to improve health and safety conditions for workers in the ready-made garment industry. Its efforts have focused heavily on structural safety of the buildings but have largely ignored broader occupational health system issues. This qualitative study explores contextual factors and system challenges that create barriers for ensuring a healthy and safe workplace in the ready-made garment industry in Bangladesh. Methods Data were collected through key informant interviews (n = 14) with government officials from the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE), factory employers, factory doctors and representatives from the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA). A thematic analysis was conducted using Atlas-ti v 5.2. Results A thematic analysis suggests that the capacity of the DIFE to provide adequate occupational health services remains a problem. There is a shortage of both appropriately trained staff and equipment to monitor occupational health and safety in factories and to gather useful data for evidence-based decision-making. Another barrier to effective occupational health and safety of workers is the lack of cooperation by employers in recording data on workers’ health and safety problems. Finally, government officials have limited resources and power to enforce compliance with regulations. Such deficiencies threaten the health and safety of this important, largely female, working population. Conclusion: This case example focused on the valuable ready-made garment industry sector of Bangladesh’s economy. It identifies the critical need for occupational health system strengthening. Specifically system capacity needs to be improved by both increasing human resources for in-factory hazards and health monitoring, regulatory inspection, enforcement, and improved training of government officials around monitoring and reporting.
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    Journal Title
    BMC Health Services Research
    Volume
    19
    Issue
    1
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4291-y
    Copyright Statement
    © The Author(s). 2019 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
    Subject
    Public Health and Health Services
    Library and Information Studies
    Nursing
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/386370
    Collection
    • Journal articles

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