Occupational health and safety challenges facing sanitary workers in Sekyere Central District in Ghana

Abstract

Richard Amankwah Kuffour

In Ghana, most employers and employees are less conscious with matters of safety. The goal of this study was to investigate the occupational health and safety challenges facing sanitary workers in Sekyere Central District Assembly. A purposive sampling was used for the selection of 37 respondents. Carefully structured questionnaires, interviews, and field observations were used for data collection, which were afterward analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences V20. The study showed that all the respon-dents faced safety, health, and working tools and equipment and work posture challenges which affected their job performance (p = 0.019). About 96.4% experienced great pain due to their work posture. The body parts mostly affected were the waist and back (57%) and upper limbs (46%). About 71.4% were not provided with personal protective equip-ment (PPEs) for their work. This, however, did not affect their job performance (p = 0.339) but was significantly correlated with the degree of sustaining injuries (p = 0.012). They suffered from a wide range of diseases which resulted in absenteeism at work and job performance (p = 0.000). The unsafe working environment affected their job performance (p = 0.002). Although job dissatisfaction of workers never affected their job performance, it was likely to cause injuries at the work place and this could impact negatively on the safety of the workers leading to poor overall work output. Regrettably, workers were never offered any in-service training.