We welcome you all to 2019 partnership across our product lines. The world has become so connected that you do not need to have physical offices set up in multiple locations in your quest to broadly reach your clients across different geographical markets.
Kindly take a look at our services, should have need for this across Nigeria, please flag us urgently and we will also appreciate referrals in 2019.
Let me quickly share a number of concerns we are currently addressing in the Nigerian Food industry in the area of Food Handlers' Health Assessment. There currently exists a number of confusion and misconception on the types of test necessary for food handlers’ medical examination but most importantly is the confusion within the streams of Hepatitis testing. We first need to understand that we have different types of Hepatitis namely, A, B, C and D, they are all infectious diseases but they are not all food borne diseases. The only food borne disease infection concern amongst these streams of Hepatitis is the Hepatitis A and this is the only Hepatitis test we should include in our food handlers health assessment.
We have inspected facilities where we noticed people keep doing Hepatitis B or C or a combination of both but leaving out the major industry concern which is the Hepatitis A. We have been educating food business operators mostly hotels in Lagos, Nigeria on the right spectrum of test most importantly the requisite Hepatitis type A as an integral part of food handlers’ medical examination done every 6 months. Recently, during my ISO 22000 Food Safety Systems Certification (FSSC) Auditor's training, i came across the regulatory requirement by NAFDAC which simply says "Hepatitis test" and was not specific on the type of Hepatitis, i realized where the confusion was coming from. We are currently engaging them on that discussion now and the need to specify the Hepatitis type so that people have a clear instruction of what the regulation requires.
For the food industry operators, it is good and very important to have your food safety processes in top shape and well documented. Do the right thing at the right time and in the right manner. Should you have indictment from client that have eaten your food and turned in for food poisoning, your first line of defense is your safe food processes and documentation. We advise in addition to the right food handlers’ medical assessment processes, you need to implement the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) processes which is a very useful tool in food industry. Remember, you cannot afford to be found on a position of compromise when you are dealing with public safety mostly in the area of food. Food poisoning if not urgently and adequately managed can kill within a short time, you do not want to be responsible for the death of a client who patronized your business out of absolute good intentions. There are many instances where litigation came up and many food operators across the world were fined and penalized so heavily to the extent that some of such business were forced to close down at the weight of such heavy fines. This is not good for business sustainability and continuity. Inserted below are links to some of such infractions and litigation and fines accordingly.
Let me quickly also add here that Hepatitis B testing amongst workers in food industry is not totally irrelevant because that is an infectious disease that is transmitted through blood and other potentially infectious materials (OPIM). We advocate for Hepatitis B program as a separate stand-alone program on preventive health in food industry instead of inclusion into the food handlers medical examination. It should be mandatory for all employees and not just food handlers only and there should be immediate vaccination after testing for non-positive outcomes. This is capable of covering people who are exposed to sharps and body cuts within such workplaces where the use of shared sharp objects and equipment are on the high side.
Improving workplaces and ensuring employees are confident to come to work with the hope of returning to their families unharmed, uninfected or killed needs more leadership commitment and support than pointing accusing fingers at employees when things go wrong. Blame game is counterproductive, leadership accountability when things go wrong improves systems and keeps workers safe. We need to strive for the right kind of leadership that sees safety of employees as an overarching indicator to his own safety and business profitability.
We wish you a great year ahead until we come your way again. Do not forget to visit our website www.ohsm.com.ng for more information about us. We also need you to visit www.oshafrica2019.com for information about the forthcoming OSHAfrica conference holding on 18 - 12 September 2019 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Register to be a part of this historic event and also send in your abstracts, we will love to listen to you present a paper at this conference.
You can reach me using ehi@ohsm.com.ng
