Australian Association for the Manual Handling of People

It is with great pleasure to release the call for abstracts for the 2014 Conference in Brisbane, Australia.

The theme for the Conference, SAFER HANDLING, continues to build on the central issues of safe moving and handling and incorporates five pillars:

1. Systems and risk management Strategies
2. Adverse patient events
3. Facility design and environmental controls
4. Equipment and assistive devices
5. Research and evaluation.

Abstracts are requested for Oral presentations, workshops and new inventors section.  More details are available on the website (aamhp.org.au) or Abstract flyer .  Abstracts close 6 September 2013.

To submit an abstract please visit: https://yrd.currinda.com/register/event/1011
 

For more information please contact either secretary@aamhp.org.au or aamhp2014@yrd.com.au.

Regards

Tony Johnston 
AAMHP Executive Secretary and Conference Convener

On 2 December 2008, draft Disability (Access to Premises - Buildings) Standards, together with a number of associated documents, were tabled in the House of Representatives

The Government proposes to refer the draft Premises Standards to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs and to ask the Committee to conduct consultations on the draft Premises Standards and to report to Parliament in the first half of 2009

The Premises Standards are intended to achieve more consistent, systemic and widespread improvements in non-discriminatory access for people with disability to publicly accessible buildings.

The Premises Standards will specify the type of access that will comply with Australia's disability discrimination system. They will help reduce red tape - by harmonising the requirements with the Building Code of Australia, which in turn, is adopted by State and Territory building law. This will mean a building constructed in compliance with the Building Code will also be compliant with the non-discrimination requirements in the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. This will provide certainty to building owners, managers and developers.

The Premises Standards recognise practical realities of what can reasonably be required and enforced. They will apply to new buildings and existing buildings only to the extent that they are undergoing significant upgrade work. They will not apply at all to private residences. They also contain an exemption to cover situations where meeting the Standards would cause unjustifiable hardship for the persons undertaking the upgrade.

The Standards and documents can be accessed at: www.ag.gov.au/premisesstandards

It was foreseeable that a worker might try to move an unsafe quantity of meat in one movement in the absence of specific training and instruction on lifting, the Queensland Supreme Court has ruled in awarding him $885K in damages.

The worker, employed by Consolidated Meat Group, was injured on a day when the meatworks were under-staffed and there was a build up of meat at his station. He was instructed by a foreman to "put the meat on the [conveyor] belt" and endeavoured to do this in one movement, by reaching one arm around the pile and twisting to the left. He experienced a sharp pain in his upper back and chest and was able to continue working for only a short period before seeking medical attention.

The pile, at the time, was around 60 centimetres high and a similar width, and estimated to weigh as much as 110 kilograms.

The worker sought damages on the basis that the employer had been negligent, breached its common law duty and breached its statutory duty. He claimed he had been given no instructions about lifting and had signed documents stating he had completed a safety induction "because he was asked to do so".

The employer failed to provide an answer to the breach of statutory duty claim and Justice Keiran Cullinane found the worker was entitled to succeed on this basis alone.

In addition, he found it was "plainly foreseeable" that in the circumstances the worker would attempt to move the meat as he did.

"The [employer] ought to have had in place a system which would have prevented [the worker] being exposed to an unnecessary risk of injury in the way that he was... [O]ne simple way to have avoided the incident was to have instructed the plaintiff not to attempt to move the meat in one movement and to have either instructed [the worker] as to a safe way of moving the meat or to have provided assistance to him to do so."

Justice Cullinane rejected the employer's argument that the worker was guilty of contributory negligence in failing to move the meat in a number of movements.

"[The worker] in taking the steps that he did, did so to enable the [employer's] factory to resume its operation and was, on my view of things, doing what could have been expected of any employee in the situation he found himself in."