| dc.description.abstract | This paper assessed the occupational health measures and practices among health workers in Kampala and Wakiso districts of central Uganda. The major objective was to evaluate the occupational health measures and practices in public, private not-for-profit hospitals in Kampala and Wakiso districts and the specific objectives include to determine the common occupational health hazards among health workers, examine the occupational health measures in place, determine the managements roles in ensuring the occupational health/safety, determine the challenges that may be impeding the occupational health safety.
Data was collected in a cross-sectional survey of 217 health workers from various hospitals both public and not for profit making hospitals. Data was collected with collaboration and approval of necessary government officials and management of non for profit hospitals. The data collection was through questionnaires and interviewed of key informants.
The major findings were that there was inadequate occupational health measure in all the hospitals, it was found that biological hazards otherwise referred to as nosocomial infections were most common with 31.7%, from the discussion with the key informants, it was made clear that this nosocomial infection occur in approximately 8% of all hospital patients, due to inadequate space and ward congestion, and infections had many time resulted in increased time spent in the hospital and in some cases death, and on the part of staff, they became less efficient. Next to biological hazards were the physical hazards associated with x-ray unit, air pollution, needle-stick injuries and heat from the boilers and autoclaves, they accounted for 28.1% of the health hazards followed by ergonomic hazards resulting from lifting of patients all the time when stretcher and associated equipment meant to assist patient are lacking or inadequate, slippery floor, walk-way injuries, continuous work(overtime), these accounted for 18.9%, following this was the chemical hazards from laboratory reagent accounting for 15.7% and lastly psycho-social hazards with 5.5%.
For the test of hypothesis, It was shown that there was no significant difference in the opinion of health workers from various hospitals selected on the occupational health measures, they believed the occupational health measures was not appropriate and inadequate as it was evident from the result of health hazards. The study therefore recommends that patients with known infectious disease should be isolated, in doing this, expansion to hospital complex is needed as virtually all hospitals are congested. All articles of equipment that are used in an isolation room should always be decontaminated before reuse. Patients who are immune-compromised should be put in protective isolation to decrease the risk of infectious agent being brought into the ward. Hospitals should be well equipped with safety equipment and protective gears, and ensuring a conducive and suitable environment for its actualization. | en_US |
