Covid-19 Safety
March 17, 2020Worst Written Safety Message Ever
April 27, 2020Good Morning Team,
One of the things that can fall by the wayside during stressful times such as these is the need for all around safety. Sure, we are, or should be, practicing social distancing, striving to not touch our faces, and washing our hands often to help avoid spreading or contracting the virus that causes Covid-19. Yet we have a need to remain mindful of other safety considerations as well. Things like using ladders properly, lifting and carrying items correctly, and staying alert and focused on only our driving, to name just a few. Times like these require extra focus on those tasks that we might routinely do. It is no time to relax our normal safe work practices and have an accident or injury.
I think that one of the worst things that we could do at this moment is to relax those routine safety measures in everyday working conditions only because we are hyper-focused on preventing the spread of, or contracting the virus. Obviously, that is a prime concern right now, but it is not the only one we should be cognizant of. Every task we do has inherent dangers and we cannot allow the current situation to mask the fact that most maintenance tasks do have risks. It is all too easy to be so focused on the newest risk and fail to recognize or act on avoidance of others, some of which are always with us.
These are difficult times to be sure but the key to getting through them, like all those that came before, is rational thought and actions. Don’t institute one safety action or policy, that then causes us to fail to continue to act on those proven to be effective in preventing accident and injury prior to this outbreak. We can ill afford to let those proven safety measures fall by the wayside only because of this latest health concern. The worst thing that could happen now would be to flood the hospitals with people injured in preventable accidents and injuries.
Continue to monitor and follow the recommendations of the CDC, KDHE and other health officials regarding avoiding the spread of the virus, but don’t let that be an excuse to let other proven safety actions fall by the wayside.
Stay safe!
Sincerely,
Raymond Moore
Dir. of Facility Services