Master key man starts occupational safety from staircases

David Chin Yi-ma
Occupational Therapist I
Occupational Health Centre (Hong Kong East Cluster)

Occupational Therapist I David Chin is a ‘master key’ in the eyes of his colleagues. Not only does he excel in his own expertise, but he is also active in promoting occupational safety. He is a core member of the cluster’s Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) working groups, such as slip, trip, fall and struck working group, where he strives to create a safe and healthy working environment for fellow co-workers.

To strengthen OSH knowledge, David obtained a Master’s degree in Occupational Hygiene and subsequently enrolled himself in a specialised training course on staircase safety assessment in the Britain in 2016. “The height, depth and slip resistance of each step and the lighting of the surrounding environment of a staircase can affect user safety.” After his return to Hong Kong, he has performed onsite comprehensive assessments on 41 major staircases in all hospitals of the Hong Kong East Cluster (HKEC), such as the stairs near the mini-bus stop at Pamela Youde Nethersole Hospital and the entrance of Wan Chai Road at Ruttonjee Hospital. He has made 111 suggestions following the inspection and communicated with the management team of each hospital and cluster’s Facilities Management Team to ensure that fellow co-workers can benefit from the improvement plans and work in a safe environment.

He always reminds colleagues of the concept of OSH, “For example, frontline colleagues are suggested to stretch for five to 10 minutes before they start working to avoid neck and back pain; those working in laboratories are encouraged to use gadgets to open capsules to reduce the risk of repetitive wrist injury.”

Apart from the OSH duty, David also deals with cases of injury-on-duty involving colleagues from the HKEC and civil servants at the HKEC Occupational Health Centre. He says, “An occupational therapist doesn’t only help patients recover physically, but also help them restore self-confidence to return to work.”

He recalls the case of a former patient, “I remember a patient from the Special Duties Unit of Hong Kong Police who was injured during tactic training in which he had to carry heavy equipment and a colleague who weighed similar to him to run upstairs. I designed simulation training for him to carry a number of heavy items and walk up and downstairs and the weight is gradually increased to the level that matched with his work requirements to help him rebuild his self-confidence and return to work.”