What is it?

Asbestosis is an incurable lung disease characterised by the scarring of lung tissue caused by the inhalation of asbestos fibres. Unlike lung cancer or mesothelioma, people with asbestosis can live for decades after diagnosis but as time passes, the individual’s condition will deteriorate and require more treatment.

Symptoms:

Asbestosis is caused by sharp, minuscule asbestos fibres becoming lodged in the lung tissue. Over the period of 20 to 30 years, the fibres cause inflammation and eventually scarring as the body attempts to heal. The severity of the symptoms depends of the length of an individual’s exposure to asbestos and include:

• Pulmonary rehabilitation: a long-term treatment that teaches better breathing methods, exercise techniques and stress relief.
• Prescription medications that ease pain and dilute secretions.
• Respiratory physiotherapy to remove lung secretions

For more information on asbestosis, check out the Australian Asbestos Network.

This is the most common form of disease found in people that have been exposed to asbestos. Benign pleural diseases are usually not life threatening but can cause extreme discomfort and pain, and can be symptomatic of late stage mesothelioma. The four main types of asbestos related pleural disease include:

• Pleural plaques: these are patches of fibrous thickening that develop between the rib bones and the lining of the lung. Plaques are generally not viewed as a serious health issue but can cause painful and difficult breathing patterns.
• Pleural effusions: this occurs when fluid is leaked into the space between the lung and the membrane that lines it. Although not life threatening on its own, pleural effusions cause extreme chest pain can reoccur even after treatment.
• Pleural thickening: this is when the lining of the lung tissue becomes irritated resulting in lesions and swelling. In unusual cases, pleural thickening can be life threatening as it severely disrupts breathing patterns.
• Pleuritis: this occurs after the lining of the lung tissue (pleura) becomes inflamed causing significant chest and shoulder pain.

In most cases the best treatment for pleural disease is lifestyle changes (ie quitting smoking) and appropriate exercise. If you are experiencing any of these symptoms you should contact your doctor immediately as it may be indicative of lung cancer.

mesothelioma and represents the most common form of this disease. However asbestos inhalation can also cause this cancer to occur in the lining of the abdominal cavity (peritoneal) and the heart (pericardial).

Symptoms:

The different forms of mesothelioma have varying symptoms of which more information can be found out about here. Symptoms, even those displayed in the later stages of the disease’s progression, can be subtle and unnoticeable. Early signs can be so insignificant that even doctors can misinterpret them as a simple ache or illness. The most common symptoms for mesothelioma include:

• Constant fatigue
• Loss of appetite and weight loss
• Chest pain
• Breathing difficulties
• Dry coughing
• Shortness of breath

Current medical research is aimed at finding earlier diagnosis systems but there are several more symptoms that indicate mesothelioma has spread to other parts of the body. These symptoms include:

• Difficulty swallowing
• Obstruction of the superior vena cava (a vessel that carries blood into the heart) leading to shortness of breath and facial swelling
• Low blood sugar levels (hypoglycaemia)
• Damage to nerves attached to voice box (laryngeal) leading to harsh breathing and speaking

Treatment:

Currently no cure for mesothelioma exists but there several treatment options available that can alleviate symptoms and extend life expectancy.

• Surgery: this treatment method can be used to remove tumours, alleviate pain for improved quality of life or to secure a biological sample for diagnosis.
• Chemotherapy: a chemical infusion into the bloodstream that aims to kill cancer cells, reduce the size and spread of tumours and prolong survival. Unfortunately chemotherapy cannot cure mesothelioma and comes with significant side effects including hairs loss, nausea and weight loss.
• Radiation therapy: this is used to stunt the growth of tumours and has been known to increase life expectancy and alleviate pain. Radiation therapy can be used at any stage of mesothelioma and includes the side effects of skin irritation, inflammation of the oesophagus, fatigue and nausea.

 

Beside mesothelioma and lung cancer, asbestos poisoning has been linked to the following cancers:

For more information or help, contact your local GP.

ordinary worker won’t know how to identify the specific elements and compounds that make a substance hazardous, nor have an in depth understanding of the appropriate control measures.

To soften the inherent risks involved to the maximum degree possible, Safe Work Australia and the relevant state regulators require the importers and manufacturers of hazardous chemicals to provide a Safety Data Sheet (SDS) to the people or organisations using their product. The SDS provides the PCBU and workers with information on the dangers involved with a substance, the controls methods and forms of treatment should an incident occur. All this information is vital in the writing of a compliant hazardous substances risk assessment.

A hazardous substance risk assessment form differs from other risk assessment in construction in that it must include information such as the health effects, signal words, precautionary details, control measures and recommended protective equipment that are outlined in the SDS. An example of this in a risk assessment form is below.

That all being said, the underlying elements of a compliant risk assessment for construction, including the hierarchy of control measures, remains largely the same. Hazard and risk identification, the implementation of control measures, the duty of care and review process, all remain core components of a hazardous substance risk assessment.

For more information, read Safe Work Australia’s guide for the preparation of Safety Data Sheets.

Whether you work in an office or under the sun, sometimes everyone feels like they’re working in a tiny, unescapable box. When it comes to high risk construction work however, there is a specific meaning for working in confined spaces. This affects the many different factors a confined spaces risk assessment must take into account when conducting hazard management.

Regulation 5 of Australia’s Work Health and Safety Regulation defines a confined space based on to the hazards associated with it. Under this definition and under the codes of practice outlined by Safe Work Australia, a confined space means an enclosed or partially enclosed space that:

o is not designed or intended primarily to be occupied by a person; and

o is, or is designed or intended to be, at normal atmospheric pressure while any person is in the space; and

o is or is likely to be a risk to health and safety from:

• an atmosphere that does not have a safe oxygen level, or contains contaminants, including airborne gases, vapours and dusts, that may cause injury
• fire or explosion, or harmful contaminants
• engulfment.
• examples may include vats, tanks, pits, pipes, ducts, flues, chimneys, silos, containers, pressure vessels, underground sewers, wet or dry wells, shafts, trenches, tunnels

An effective and compliant confined space risk assessment example will take notice of these generic but identifiable hazards:

• Restricted entry or exit
• Presence of harmful airborne contaminants
• Unsafe oxygen levels caused when oxygen in the atmosphere is:
• Fire and explosion
• Unstable substances that risk engulfment
• Uncontrolled introduction of substances
• Contact with biological agents
• Exposure to mechanical hazards
• Contact with electrical hazards
• Skin contact with hazardous substances (this will require a hazardous substances risk assessment)
• Noise
• Manual tasks
• Radiation
• Environmental hazards

For more details on these hazards and the related risk control measures, read the SafeWorkPro Blog.

Did you know that panthers and leopards are the same animal? No jokes. Only their fur coats are different, everything else is the same. Believe it or not, job safety analysis forms are similar (minus the claws, teeth, agility and general awesomeness).

Otherwise known as a risk assessment or a job task analysis, job safety analyses (JSA for short) aim to identify hazards and implement measures that will control or at least minimise the risk involved in construction work. Job safety analysis forms come in a variety of types but all share the common traits. The below job safety analysis template comes from the Victorian WorkCover Authority and gives you an idea of correct layout.

As you can see from the above job safety analysis worksheet, there are four parts to a good JSA template.

1: Classify the tasks: along with everyone involved in the high risk construction work, write down each of the steps that make up the job.

2: Hazard and risk identification: besides each step, write down what injuries or health threats are involved.

3: Document the control measures: next to each hazard assessment, specify what control measures will be used to eliminate or reduce the risk of injury or ill health.

4: Distribute responsibility: outline who is responsible for the implementation of each control measure.

One more point that you’ll need to remember. If an incident does occur in the workplace that results in injury or ill health, your job safety analysis could very well be used in court proceedings. This means every duty holder must sign off and review the job safety analysis worksheet should safety conditions change.

So it’s all pretty similar stuff. Panther or leopard? Risk assessment or job safety analysis? Same things, different names.

On a safe work site, the core ingredient will always be good communication between workers and employers. However, while almost one third of construction workers agree that conditions in their workplace stopped them from working safely, the figure reported by their employers was much lower. This gap in communication can be pinned down on two major issues; not being able to be in 101 places at once, and an inefficiency in the traditional system of paper risk assessments. In response, SafeWorkPro is bringing you much needed change for high risk construction work. We want to communicate with you how our way to resolve these issues with our epic new push notification feature!

Particularly on huge sites with numerous trades, monitoring risk assessments for any high risk assessment risk ratings can seem like a job of epic proportions. While you are likely already managing this task as fast as humanly possible, there is only so much you are physically capable of completing and you cannot be in 100 places at once. Technology is therefore the most practical solution to your efficiency problem, and no we don’t mean cloning yourself.

SafeWorkPro is bringing a much more reasonable and cost-effective answer in the form of push notifications for our mobile applications! This feature brings a whole new level of simplicity for you to the risk assessment process. Push notifications immediately display on all admin devices with the name and place of a worker who has submitted a risk asessment containing a risk rating above 15. Not only is this saving you the time and effort of individually scanning all safety documents for the warning signs of danger, but it is also improving your emergency response rates. The immediacy of the notification allows you to prioritise your duties, and attend to potential work safety emergencies as they appear.

Our key to solving your second dilemma lies in our computerisation of your safety documents. A major perk of this is the softwares ability to scan your workers documents for things such as a high risk assessment rating over 15. Seeing this figure would be enough to trigger your safety alarm bells, but spotting it amongst a stack of paperwork over a mile high poses a greater challenge. Allow our technology to sift through the paperwork for you!

So instead of feeling overwhelmed by safety procedures and paperwork, try turning to SafeWorkPro to improve communication of safety issues on your worksite.