The nature of our industry means that approximately 7000 individuals are working in remote locations in our industry. This means that many of our people cannot be evacuated to a hospital with 4 hours or may experience delays to delivery of medical care due to working at isolated locations.
Baseline medicals can identify existing ailments or conditions that may predispose someone to serious harm when working remotely or unsupervised. Identifying these conditions do not exclude workers from a role – they just highlight when things need to be monitored or managed.
The Fitness to Work Project Team has been making solid progress with the development of a baseline medical guideline to address both pre-employment and periodic medical assessments which is aimed at improving the health and safety of those who work in the CSG industry.
The project has recently hosted two consultation workshops in Brisbane. The aim of the workshops was to brief the participants on the background, requirements and process for implementing the (draft) Medical Assessment Guideline and build engagement and seek feedback prior to finalising the document and process in 2020.
The structured workshop saw over nearly 70 participants from across the membership provide valuable input in the future development of the guideline. Overall the feedback to date has been positive with many expressing that the guideline brings the CSG industry into line with other industries in Australia. More importantly over 250 individual items of feedback were received on across the two sessions focused on both the medical and implementation aspects of the guideline, with further feedback received via a Survey Monkey questionnaire.
The Project Team is currently reviewing the comments provided and will revise the document in the coming months with the consultation process continuing in Q1 2020 where it is planned to connect with the Safer Together community in the CSG regional centres.
If you would like more information or express interest in the regional consultation process, please contact [email protected].
Learn more about FTW Medical Assessment Guideline here.