Safety First

​At SCH, Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) is essential to create a safe working environment for our colleagues so that they are able to deliver the best care for our patients. As such, it is important for us to uphold high standards for WSH in SCH!

We had a conversation with SCH WSH committee member Jeffrey Soon, Assistant Manager of Operations from BVCH and WSH champion Favian Lim, Physiotherapist at OCH, to find out why workplace safety and health is important.

Increasing SCH's Workplace Safety
To help increase SCH's workplace safety, the WSH committee appointed champions among our clinical colleagues – who make up the bulk of our hospital's manpower. This also helps to ensure that our clinical colleagues feel empowered and can influence others towards building a safe work culture.

As part of the committee's on-going efforts, champions had to attend a variety of courses – mutual care training organised by our HR colleagues to provide support in the event of staff abuse; de-escalation training conducted by our Patient Experience (PE) colleagues; and even self-defence classes by the Institute of Mental Health (IMH)!

The WSH committee also pushed out a safety campaign in SCH, targeting reduction in physical related injuries during patient care activities, and doing periodic reviews on non-patient related incidents to give the necessary advice to departments.

"We recognise that ground staff will have a closer and more direct perspective on how the existing workflow can be improved. They are also catalysts in spreading a safety culture among their peers", explained Jeffrey.


The Champions' Roles
As a WSH champion, Favian goes on safety walkabouts to identify potential hazards in our workplace, reviews the Risk Management System (RMS) and comes up with solutions that could prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.

"Apart from that, the champions also have to ensure that we adhere to the hand hygiene protocol at all times to prevent the spread of any contamination", said Favian.

Pal Mae Sandoval, Staff Nurse at SKCH, who is also one of our WSH champions, encourages staff to report anything which might compromise workplace safety, so as to heighten awareness for everyone – patients, visitors and staff.
 
"Workplace safety is the whole of SCH's responsibility. It requires a good team effort!", advised Pal Mae.