gms | German Medical Science

Introduction: Work-related injuries and illnesses can have significant impacts on the health and safety of workers, particularly in industries with inherent hazards such as welding and carpentry. We aimed to assess the safety of the workshops, using safety score system and risk assessment using a risk ranking matrix for eye injuries at small-scale industrial enterprises.

Methods: Data from 71 welding shops and 24 carpenter shops were included. A safety checklist was employed to verify whether the required PPE was available and note the critical characteristics of the workshop environment. MS Access was used to collate the data and transferred to IBM-SPSS.

Results: 8 of 76 welding workshops scored 20 out of 60 (11%), and 68 scored 30 (89%). None of the welding workshops had proper ventilation, cleanness nor shields/screens used to confine welding process. Furthermore, 15 of the 19 carpenter workshop (79%) scored 30 out of 50, and 4 workshops (21%) scored 20. All worker carried out cleaning, hammering, and manual handling. Arc welding, gas welding and grinding were the frequent activities carried out in welding workshops. Drilling, chipping, sanding, hand sawing, chiselling were the regular activities performed in carpenter workshops. Airborne dust/fumes/gases, flying particles, and sharp objects were observed to be the very common hazards that workers are exposed to in both carpenter and welding workshops. Intense light and extreme heat were found in all welding workshops, vibrations were noted to be a usual activity in carpenter workshops. In welding workshops, workers were using face shields (82%) and welding helmets (32%). None of the workers were using filter lenses.

Conclusions: This study has shown low safety score at small-scale industrial enterprises. it is critical that workplace injuries are reduced through the implementation of effective risk control and prevention interventions.