QUESTION

Case study

Read the following and then answer the questions below

You are the Health and Safety Officer of a car paint workshop. The manager informs you that a painter who was performing very wellhas recently started to be absent from work because of respiratory problems. The manager asks you to investigate into the matter and propose remedial measures

History taking of the worker informs you that he has started to develop breathlessness since about two months and that he becomes breathless when he does varnishing work for cars after the actual paintwork has been completed. The worker also says that he is perfectly well on week -ends

A visit to the workshop allows you to make a quick assessment of the working conditions and hazards. An examination of the containers for substances used in the workshop also gives you some clues, The visit also allows you to check on the means of controls in the workshop. You decide to make a simple test to investigate on the nature of the problem before sending him to the company doctor for a more sophisticated test. Finally you write a report to the management informing them of your observations and suggesting remedial measures

Questions

(a) Name five agents that can cause respiratory problems at the workplace

(b) What can you derive from the history of the worker on the nature of the responsible agent?

(c) What more information do you obtain on the examination of the containers? (Suggest three names of chemical substances)

(d) Name a document which can be used to get more information on the chemical substances you mentioned

(e) Name five types of information which you can obtain in the document mentioned in (d) above

(f) What kind of information you can get from your visit on the control measures in place?

(g) What simple test can help you to investigate on the nature of the problem?

(h) Explain how you would do the test

(i) What more sophisticated test can be done?

(j) What would you propose for the worker?