You have to be joking: Are communities loosing respect for health and safety policy, programs and systems?

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Author(s)
Oughton, Nicholas
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2014
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
OHS management systems and professionals have done much to ensure the health and safety of workers and societies in general. However, where these systems have become complex, overbearing and authoritarian, they have stifled workers and the community's ability to respond to unique or unanticipated occurrences of occupational and general risk. This predicament is exacerbated when the general public lose faith in an OHS culture that has "gone mad", or become "out of control", and where "open season" has been declared by the media on safety regulators, their systems and regulations. This may be a perceived rather than actual ...
View more >OHS management systems and professionals have done much to ensure the health and safety of workers and societies in general. However, where these systems have become complex, overbearing and authoritarian, they have stifled workers and the community's ability to respond to unique or unanticipated occurrences of occupational and general risk. This predicament is exacerbated when the general public lose faith in an OHS culture that has "gone mad", or become "out of control", and where "open season" has been declared by the media on safety regulators, their systems and regulations. This may be a perceived rather than actual truth, however, perceptions drive personal attitudes and responses, and the reputation and effectiveness of OHS is at stake. Driving some contemporary attitudes towards OHS is a barrage of lampoon, satire and angry comment pervade by mischief-makers, the press and the electronic media. The profession has also looked into the mirror and revealed areas of self-doubt. This paper looks at an unfolding and worrying scenario for occupational health.
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View more >OHS management systems and professionals have done much to ensure the health and safety of workers and societies in general. However, where these systems have become complex, overbearing and authoritarian, they have stifled workers and the community's ability to respond to unique or unanticipated occurrences of occupational and general risk. This predicament is exacerbated when the general public lose faith in an OHS culture that has "gone mad", or become "out of control", and where "open season" has been declared by the media on safety regulators, their systems and regulations. This may be a perceived rather than actual truth, however, perceptions drive personal attitudes and responses, and the reputation and effectiveness of OHS is at stake. Driving some contemporary attitudes towards OHS is a barrage of lampoon, satire and angry comment pervade by mischief-makers, the press and the electronic media. The profession has also looked into the mirror and revealed areas of self-doubt. This paper looks at an unfolding and worrying scenario for occupational health.
View less >
Journal Title
Journal of Hospital Administration
Volume
3
Issue
5
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2014. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Subject
Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety
Health Promotion
Public Health and Health Services
Policy and Administration