St Vincent Electricity Services Limited was represented at the recently concluded Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Workshop/Seminar, which was held in Barbados from October 23 to 28.

The company was represented by Sheynique Sam, technical assistant, Environmental Health and Safety; Anthony Patterson, Environmental Health and Safety officer and Joan Millington, manager, Internal Audit.{{more}}

According to CARILEC, the primary goal of the seminar was to showcase the latest thinking, innovation and research in occupational health and safety and examine how the workplace can be designed so that employees are safe and companies more productive. The seminar was interactive and featured energy leaders, occupational health and safety experts sharing ideas, experiences, skills and knowledge to improve the lives of employees. It also provided participants with an opportunity to network with their peers.

The seminar opened officially on Monday, October 24. The day before, two meetings were held: one to discuss OHS issues in the electric utility industry and the other was a disaster coordinators’ meeting.

At the opening ceremony, remarks were delivered by Frederick Adamson, manager, HSE, EMERA (Caribbean) Inc, Peter Williams, managing director, EMERA (Caribbean) Inc and Dr Esther Byer Suckoo, Barbadian Minister of Labour, Social Security and Human Development. The keynote address was delivered by Brian Reece, manager, HSE, Barbados Light and Power Company Ltd.

Minister Suckoo, in her remarks, focused on values at the societal and organizational level. She stated that honesty, taking responsibility for your actions, respect for others, property and the environment are some important ideals that can help lead to a safer society. She also pointed out that organizational values such as care, communication and commitment can help build a culture of safety in the organization.

VINLEC’s Environmental Health and Safety officer, Anthony Patterson, made a presentation at the workshop, titled “An ergonomic analysis of VINLEC’s Vehicle Maintenance Workstation.” Patterson outlined how the exercise was carried out and noted that an ergonomic assessment of the factors and risks associated with the vehicle maintenance operations was carried out using a combination of standard checklists, interviews, observations and measurements. He said that the findings of the analysis were assessed in light of best practices and recommendations provided for effective ergonomic interventions.

The Caribbean Electric Utility Services Corporation (CARILEC) co-hosted the event with the Barbados Light and Power Company Limited under the theme: “Safety: A Value, Not A Priority”.