2023-10-28 00:26:37
Saturday, October 28, 2023, 00:26
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The Basque Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, Osalan, is about to turn 30 years old. “Three decades of continuous learning,” as summarized by the second vice president and Minister of Labor and Employment of the Basque Government, Idoia Mendia, who believes that with the anniversary the time has come to show “greater ambition.” “We want to ensure that prevention is a distinctive feature of Basque culture, that society as a whole has an awareness of the right to health in all areas, including work, which allows it to be demanding,” he explained yesterday in a day organized by EL CORREO in collaboration with Osalan itself and the Department of Labor and Employment coinciding with the end of the European Week for Safety and Health at Work.
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Mendia took the opportunity to announce that the Budget bill of the Basque autonomous community for the year 2024, delivered yesterday in the Parliament of Vitoria, contemplates an endowment of “more than 18 million euros” with which Osalan will give “a quantitative and qualitative leap. «We are going to work so that prevention reaches each worker within the company, but also outside, and especially so that it reaches young people, so that when they think about their future profession, in addition to salary conditions, they value the work conditions and take into account It counts if they are healthy,” he said.
Alert system
Among the innovations that the organization will implement to achieve this objective, the counselor highlighted “the design of an alert system that reaches the population.” «It seems like a good start to start with those related to extreme weather phenomena. They are becoming more frequent and our preventive system must adapt. From now on, Osalan will complete the notices it already sends to prevention services, reminding how to avoid risks,” she explained.
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«In an advanced society, the Administration must have a preventive function»
Focus shift
This “greater ambition” was also highlighted by Elena Pérez Barredo, Deputy Minister of Labor and Social Security, who later insisted on the need to change the approach from which health is addressed in the work environment. «Public administrations started many years ago with a very intuitive vision, acting when the accident had already happened through pensions and compensation. The next step was to assume a surveillance and control function with the imposition of rules and sanctions. But now we have to go one step further; In an advanced society, administrations have to have a preventive function, they have to help prevent accidents or illnesses from occurring,” she explained.
«We are at work for about a third of our lives, so what happens at work is important. The health we gain or lose is important,” he added. «Having a decent job with rights helps us have good health and allows us to have a social purpose and a reasonably independent life. But it can also be a negative determinant if we do not know how we should protect it,” she concluded.
«The culture of prevention must reach the streets»
«We talk about a culture of prevention, but many times it is not clear what we mean. Our vision is that it should reach the street. We cannot only inform workers, middle managers, managers and technical and health personnel of prevention services. It is not little, but we cannot stop there; You also have to get to the street. “Let the street demand prevention of occupational risks,” stressed the general director of Osalan, Lourdes Iscar, at the opening of the day. “It is essential that society as a whole knows what can happen to them by going to work, as well as what tools and rights they have to protect their health,” she insisted. Furthermore, she also highlighted the need to address such information with a “positive approach.” «We should stop talking about occupational risk prevention, which sounds negative, and talk about safety and prevention at work because it entails a change in attitude; I want to work well and for my health to be preserved,” she explained.
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