Musculoskeletal injuries are being built up in the bodies of working people every day, one poor lift, one poor twist, backbend or sideways bend or tilt at a time. Our working people unnecessarily suffer pain and resultant illness Families consequentially suffer disadvantages both socially and economically that is completely avoidable. This is not to mention costing our governments and our employers billions of dollars per year.
Safety professionals can be the gateway to solving this epidemic in a practical, efficient and effective manner, but to do this they must re-think current practices and change current approaches. Telling staff to bend their knees and keep their backs straight while lifting is good but not just, not good enough!
The fact is manual handling injuries are continuing to be significant with ever increasing costs resulting means we need urgent changes to the approach.
Years of research by members of the Backsafe® Team suggest that the manual handling problem exists because most staff have no awareness of the physical work habits they employ when carrying out manual handling tasks. These unconscious work habits often use the joints of the body against their intended design. This type of unconscious body movement occurs throughout the working day in general and job specific tasks and builds up hidden injury in the joints. Over time these hidden body stress injuries build up into musculoskeletal disorders throughout the workforce. Without changing these continual unconscious work habits workplace musculoskeletal disorders are unavoidable and crippling costs result.
The Backsafe Manual Handling Training Program is designed around this new approach which makes it unique from all other training programs. We have developed and revised our approach over 30 years of training a wide range of workers across Australia and know with full certainty that this is the only way to truly tackle the manual handling epidemic we face today.
To find out how we can support your training efforts call Peter Broadbent 0414 460 859.
