The Editor, Sir:

The preventable accident at the school in St Elizabeth on October 15 should serve as a 'wake-up call' for the nation to pay more attention to the workplace, institutions and environmental hazards that leave us all at risk.

In this case, the lesson to be learnt from the deadly chlorine gas rupture should set the stage for occupational health and safety programmes at educational and health-care institutions.

In addition, this would be a bold step in protecting our children in particular and employees in general.

Legislation needed

Lack of adequate legislation, regulations, administration and awareness, regarding protection of equipment and material handling was obvious from the news report.

Based on this, Howard Chin's recent 'Letter of the Day' should help to provide the much-needed and timely intervention in safety of workplaces and institutions.

It is vital at this stage that the legislation coming soon from the Ministry of Labour should be a comprehensive occupation health and safety act.

This must be backed up by specific enabling regulations for construction, mining, industrial sectors institutions and open-ended extended coverage to policies, programmes, practices and proce-dures in dealing with designated and hazardous substances, e.g. chlorine, lead, mercury, asbestos, to name a few.

Let us hope the soon coming labour legislation is not merely a renovated version of the Factories Act. There must be collaboration to deal with schools, hospitals, among other places.

Incidents, accidents, critical injuries and fatalities can be prevented in our workplaces and institutions. Prevention is better than cure.

I am, etc..

Dr FRANK LAWRENCE

Justice of the peace

Environment/occupational

health consultant

Box 302, Runaway Bay PO

St Ann