DO WE HAVE HEALTH AND SAFETY – or gross irresponsibility?
Some years back my daughter and I were returning home from work at Kirkop and were caught in a traffic jam in the vicinity of the roundabout at the St Dorothy School on Zebbug outskirts. As we slowly and tortuously eased forward a couple of metres at a time we saw the reason for the jam.
The massive metal concrete mixer on a truck had fallen off and onto the road. Luckily there was no other vehicle alongside the truck otherwise the consequences could well have been fatal. The reason: the mixer was rotating on highly rusted hinges that eventually gave way and offloaded the mixer.
A rare happening – not really, just par for the course as far as health and safety are concerned in these islands. Hardly a day passes without news of somebody falling off a building site or somebody suffering injury or death on a construction site.
Some years back too when my mother was still alive and in a home for the elderly in Bugibba, her window overlooked a block of apartments being constructed and having nothing much to do she would sit at the window and watch activity on the site.
I took a look and yes, of course, saw men taking horrendous risks that made my hair rise. I warned her not to keep constantly looking because today or tomorrow, somebody was going to fall off from somewhere.
One afternoon I called to see her and took note of a number of Police cars and an ambulance at the side of the building. She was slumped in a chair wiping her eyes with a damp handkerchief from crying.
“I saw him fall off”, she sobbed. “He slipped and fell off. It was terrible”. Later it was announced the man had died from the fall and was the father-in-law of the builder.
The other day a massive block of concrete fell off a truck trailer onto the road, an Italian man fell in an Attard quarry … and on and on it goes.
Legislation-wise all the regulations are there; observance – very, very doubtful; Health and Safety Inspectors cannot be everywhere all the time.
Ultimately, it all boils down to responsibility and the consequence of most of these accidents stems from gross irresponsibility because the attitude in this country is that everything goes and if anything happens, well bad luck because being responsible costs money and time so best forget it.
As with all the many road accidents, the sole deterrent is very, very heavy fines because our philosophy is that the pocket comes first and foremost.
ALBERT JEROME FENECH
