Inside this issue...

-    She’s losing her hearing… and she’s only 28!
-    Your responsibilities for managing noise

Dear reader,

It’s less than a week before the Easter weekend. My family and I are looking forward to gorging ourselves on chocolate eggs. My favourites are the white, sugar-covered “hens eggs”. We’ll also be hosting lunch on Sunday, with many of our relatives dropping in for the occasion. I’m particularly keen to see a young cousin, Michelle, who had me worried the last time I saw her…

She’s losing her hearing… and she’s only 28!

For as long as I can remember, Michelle has liked very loud, very heavy music. Since her late teens she’s visited a local club that specialises in playing this sort of music, and she parties until the early hours of the weekend. The problem is, after more than a decade of such dedicated attendance, she’s confessed that she’s finding it difficult to sometimes hear people, and she’s taken to turning the volume on her car radio louder and louder!

Being in our business, I know how damaging exposure to loud noise can be to a person’s hearing. While there’s nothing I can really do to control Michelle’s listening habits (or taste in music!), I can perhaps give you some necessary advice so your employees don’t feel as though they’re listening to Metallica every day at work!

Your responsibilities for managing noise

You may not expose anyone who enters your workplace to a noise at or above the 85dBA noise-rating limit (Regulation 3, OHSA).

What’s more, there are five tips they should learn to implement, and these aren’t anything they have to wait for YOU to do. 

5 tips to manage noise

If your employee is exposed, or exposes himself, to a noise at or above the noise-rating limit, he must obey any instructions you or someone you appoint gives him to minimise the damage to his hearing (Regulation 5, OHSA).

To comply with this regulation, your employee must:

Tip #1: Adopt measures to control noise, e.g. working in a demarcated noise zone

Tip #2: Use the PPE you provide

Tip #3: Report damaged, lost or defective noise control equipment

Tip #4: Co-operate with you when using personal sound exposure meters, to determine personal noise exposure

Tip #5: Report for medical surveillance and training. This will assist you and your health and safety supervisor to constantly determine any damage their hearing may have suffered, and keep your employees up to date with the necessary training.

In the name of safety, especially on the roads this holiday!

Christel Fouché
Editor-In-Chief: Health and Safety Advisor