AfricaPress-Tanzania: INVESTMENT by the Occupational Safety and Health Authority (OSHA) has made on eye examination tools at workplaces would help improve safety at workplaces.
This assurance was made by the Permanent Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office (Policy, Parliamentary Affairs, Labour, Employment, Youth and Disabled) Mr Andrew Massawe.
According to the OSHA, some of the accidents at workplaces were the result of poor eyesight. Mr Massawe said this over the weekend when he opened a seminar for health inspectors from OSHA held in Dodoma.
He noted that application of modern equipment, especially for testing eyesight that the OSHA has distributed to workplaces would help in reducing complaints from workers over the inaccuracy of testing results.
“For OSHA to invest on modern facilities is a commendable move, I call upon the authority to get more equipment to supply them in more workplaces,” he said.
OSHA Chief Executive Officer Ms Khadija Mwenda said that the aim of the seminar was capacity-building among health inspectors. During the seminar, the participants were trained on how to use the modern eye testing equipment.
Ms Mwenda said the gadgets, known as VT 1 master, were bought to improve the accuracy of testing results for low short-sightedness and long-sightedness.
“Our job also is to do an investigation on accidents at workplaces and undertake evaluation. We have observed that in many accidents when asking those involved they would tell you that they didn’t see what happened before the accident. So we have realised that some workers can have eye problems without being aware of the situation,” she explained.
Commenting, the head of training Dr Robert Mazengo said the devices were modern and have a high capacity for testing.
Participants Ms Amina Nangu and Dr Rajabu Mambo said the devices would enable them to give accurate results and save time because they can be used to test many people at a time.
