Health & Safety
The good health and safety of employees is vital to the success of Worsley Alumina’s operations. This is achieved by:
- Making the workplace as safe as possible
- Safety inductions for new employees
- Ongoing training for existing employees
- Providing resources to support and improve safety
- Promoting health lifestyle practices.
A team of occupational health and safety specialists support the workforce and also provide training and education programs.
All contractors are required to achieve agreed safety standards before working at the mine or refinery sites.
Worsley's health and safety management system is aligned to the BHP Billiton Health, Safety, Environment and Communitty (HSEC) management standards.
Worsley Alumina’s goal is to operate without any injuries in the workplace. Over the past seven years there has been a steady reduction in the workplace injury. To improve this performance, Worsley has developed a more complete set of leading Key Performance Indicators which include:
- Compliance to scheduled safety visits
- Number of unsafe situations per audit hour
- Attendance at safety meetings.
Worsley has a full-time occupational hygienist who deals with the recognition, evaluation and control of potential workplace hazards that could potentially affect workers’ health.
Worsley also has a Central Safety and Health Committee – which includes all of Worsley’s senior managers and the Occupational Health and Safety superintendent – and is responsible for:
- Guiding overall plant health and safety strategy
- Approving health and safety policies
- Allocating resources
The Central committee takes advice and suggestions from many workplace committees in allocating resources to improve safety.
Emergency Services
Worsley maintains 24-hour ambulance, fire fighting and emergency rescue teams at the refinery and mine.
Fully-equipped four-wheel-drive fire fighting tenders are on site at the refinery and mine to fight bushfires and to handle other rescue and fire emergencies.
Worsley Alumina also maintains ambulances that are fully equipped and capable of dealing with a wide range of emergency situations.
Trained ambulance and fire fighting volunteer crews are available 24-hours for fire and emergency call outs. All crew members are fully qualified ambulance drivers, which includes high level first aid training. Crew members are required to complete regular training update courses.
The refinery medical centre is well equipped and staffed by two paramedics/nurses who provide a range of medical services well beyond first aid for work injuries. The medical centre staff are also able to perform on-site health surveillance, ongoing treatment of work and non-work injuries, workplace injury rehabilitation and numerous health promotions.
Health promotion
A number of general health programs have been introduced for the benefit of employees.
The promotion of health in the workplace aims to ensure the workers' health is maintained both at work and away from work so that all employees benefit from being healthy.
Voluntary workplace programs include:
- Diabetes testing
- Cardiac risk factor training and assessment
- Skin cancer screening
- Physical fitness assessment and get fir programs
- Quit smoking programs
- Flu immunisation
An onsite fitness and rehabilitation centre includes a medical assessment room, exercise area and gymnasium. This facility allows professional workplace rehabilitation of both work and non-work injuries plus it is an excellent venue for all employees to increase or maintain their fitness and well-being. An exercise physiologist staffs the facility part-time.
