How to become a Register Safety and Health Officer : Part II

With the certificate of attendance, you can apply to take the SHO examination organized by NIOSH. The exam consist of 4 papers namely Paper I, II, III & IV. Paper I consist of multiple choice question, subjective question and essay question. The objective and subjective question, you have to answer all the question but for essay question, you only need to answer 4 out of 6 questions. Paper II consist of the same format with the difference:
Paper I - Niosh sho module I & II
Paper II - Niosh sho module III & IV

Paper III on the other hand is quite challenging, its a work station test where candidate are required to go through 10 work station each with its own set of question. With 5 minutes given to answer the question for each station. Reading the question already take up 1 minutes, maybe 2 minutes to figure out the answer and 2 minutes to write down the answer. You might end up not answering all the question.

Paper IV is a workplace assignment where the candidate choice a workplace to write a risk assessment report and submit the report to Niosh exam unit. This is followed by a presentation of your assignment to the examiner and followed by an interview session.

The duration for the candidate to complete or pass all the examination is 2 years starting from when the first paper is taken. i.e. If you take Paper I in Oct 2013, by Oct 2015 you must pass all the paper or consider fail in the exam. The second condition that will cause you to fail is failling a single paper for 5 times. i.e. if you fail paper IV, you may resit the paper again the second time, third time...until fifth time. If you still fail paper IV the fifth time, you have to retake the exam.

If that happen, it doesn't mean you cannot take the sho exam ever again. You can by taking a SHO improvement course (10 days) then re-apply to take the sho exam all over again from paper I to IV.

                                ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ You only fail when you give up ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

How to become a Register Safety and Health Officer : Part I

I was taking a break from the blog to concentrate on my SHO exam. In Malaysia, the authority on safety and health is with the Department of Occupational Safety and Health, DOSH.

Under DOSH, the training and certification is done by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, NIOSH.

In Sarawak, there are college and university that collaborate with Niosh to offer Diploma in OSH. If you take those course you are exempt from taking the Niosh SHO course but you will have to sit for the Niosh SHO exams.

Step 1 - The Course

Niosh SHO certification programme

Module: 4 modules

Duration: 22 days (monday to saturday every week)

Location: Niosh center Kuching (near Pentanak Market), Bintulu & Miri

Cost : RM 4,000

Cannot take 1 month off !! another option is the module course, each module can be taking in one week for each month. Say, module 1 on the 1st week of Feb, module 2 on the 1st week of Mar, module 3 on 1st week of Apr and module 4 on May.

After you completed the whole course, you will be awarded with a Certificate of Attendance for Safety and Health Officer. The certificate qualify you to take the Niosh SHO exam with minimum academic qualification of SPM. The application for exam is conducted by Niosh Headquater in Bangi. You can request to take the exam in Kuching, Bintulu or Miri.      

Food Preservative

We will be taking about fish. We consume fish as part of our daily diet for its protein and vitamin. Fish accounted for 26% of our daily protein diet. But are you aware that beside the fish essential that we consume, we are also consuming other element together. One of them that come in mind is formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is a chemical compound commonly used for preservation of biological specimens. It kills most bacteria and fungi so to make it suitable to use for preservation of specimens. Formaldehyde is highly toxic to animal including human and it has been classify as a known carcinogen, what this mean is clinical studies has shown that it can cause cancer in human. A low dose will cause skin burn and irritation. Higher dose will cause dizziness and abdominal pain. Long term exposure to formaldehyde will cause nasal cancer.  

Formaldehyde has made its way into the fishing industry, where formaldehyde are being apply to fish product to prolong its shelf live. Last year, 103 tons of fish from Malaysia and Pakistan exported to Medan Indonesia were found to contain formaldehyde. The shipment was quarantine off and sent back to Malaysia. A layer of formaldehyde is spray on top of the fish skin to prevent bacteria growth which is the leading cause of food decay. Formaldehyde is colorless, so you wouldn't see it.  Indirectly it reduces the operation cost by depending less on refrigeration and less on special care during transportation. Fish product reach the hand of consumer fresher but with the additional preservative.

Advice to the Consumer

1.     Wash all food thoroughly with running tap water because formaldehyde can be soluble in water so washing can remove the present of formaldehyde.

      2. Soak dry groceries like dried fish thoroughly in clean water before cooking and discard the water. 
3. Cook all food with the temperature of 75°C or above because heat can breakdown the formaldehyde.
4. Buy from reliable sources. 

National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health

Last week i travel to the NIOSH headquarter at Bandar Baru Bangi, Selangor to take up competency examination for chemical health risk assessor. Bandar Baru Bangi is a new township at Hulu Langat district, Selangor. Its a 45 minutes drive from KLIA. The exam would take 2 days, the center provide hostel but i opt to stay at a motel nearby because of the facilities nearby.

There are 11 competency you can obtain from the Department Occupational Safety and health Malaysia, through taking the course, passing the exam, work assignment and interview.
1. Chemical health risk assessor
2. Hygiene technician I
3. Hygiene technician II
4. Occupational health doctor
5. CIMAH competent person
6.  Lift competent person
7. Noise competent person
8. Authorized gas tester
9. Entry supervisor
10. Indoor air quality assessor
11. Safety health officer

You can also opt to take the courses to enrich your knowledge only without taking the exam.

The first judgement

When ever i travel outstation whether to Kuala Lumpur or Singapore, i can't stop to admire the beauty and the development progress each country has made. But as a safety practitioner, i can't stop to take notice of the personnel protective equipment (namely safety helmet or hard hat) that is being worn by the construction worker.

It comes in yellow, red, blue, white etc color; At the glens of an eye, you can easily spot whether the construction site enforce the worker PPE requirement. Safety and progress development has to more hand in hand. Lack of safety awareness and high accident rate will tarnish the image of the country amid the construction of beautiful high rise building. Safety awareness represent a society intellectual level. Putting on a safety helmet means that the worker understand the risk involve and follow the rules to safe guard his safety, it show the employer understand his responsibility to provide PPE and safety control measure on the site. If a developer cannot even provide his worker the necessary tools to keep them safe, what will you expect from the standard of work project he offer. If a worker doesn't seem to care about following the rule of safety, what will you expect the quality of work he provide. Safety begin with you.

Salted Fish, chinese style

Favorite local delicacy, serve with porridge, fried with bean sprout, stream with tofu are among the thing you can do with salted fish. The origin to salting fish is as a food preservation because most fungus or bacteria cannot survive on highly salted environment. Fish salting use mineral salt which mostly consist of sodium chloride, NaCl. 

Salt is essential to animal live, but too much of it can proven to be hazard to health. Salted fish, chinese style has been classified by International Agency for Research Cancer, IARC as known carcinogenic to human (Group 1) meaning there are enough evidence to conclude that it can cause cancer in humans. Everything has it limits, for those salted fish lover, try go easy with the food and don't over consume. 

Malaysia's worst road tragedy

37 killed, 16 injured in Malaysia's worst road tragedy, after a bus carrying 53 plunged into a 60m ravine near Genting Highlands around 2.45pm 21st August, Wednesday. The 16 survivors comprised seven Malaysians, three Indonesians, four Bangladeshis, one Thai national, and one Korean.

The bus was carrying passenger going downhill when the driver lost control over the bus and plunge into the ravine. The bus was overloaded as its capacity was 44 passengers.

What remain of the bus....

Occupational Health in the workplace

When we talk about occupational safety and health, one tend to focus more on the safety aspect when it comes to identifying hazards. Hazards like falling object, sharp object on the ground, explosive material, welding spark, slippery floor and the most popular poor housekeeping, are always on the list. We tend to identify these hazard based on our observation and logic. But when it come to identify health hazard, it would require some expertise and experience.

Workers doing welding work will wear a face shield or safety goggles because they can see the spark flying around and concern for their eye, that's safety. But few wouldn't know about the content or effect of the welding fume that they inhale in. Welding fume contain a lot toxin gases depending on the type of welding and surface being weld. Amount the toxic fume contain manganese, nickel, chromium, lead, cadmium and etc. Manganese can cause Parkinson’s disease while nickel and chromium can cause lung cancer. You might not even feel anything now until 10 - 20 years later, then the disease appear. That's health. Check with your supervisor or employer if you are unsure of any potential hazard to health at your workplace.    

Toxin in peanut butter

Ever since the milk powder botulism scare, i am started to get cautions about the food we ate. One thing that come to mind is peanut butter. Some parents say don't feed your children peanut butter. A dog trainer told me never give peanut butter to dogs, it will poison them. Done some research and found out there is a toxin in peanut butter called aflatoxin.

Aflotoxin are synthesized by species of mold found naturally in plant or soil. The sickness cause by aflotoxin can defer by age, sex, possible mixture to other toxin and present body nutrition. The toxin will target liver organ. For children below 4 years of age. Their liver has not fully mature like adult, so they are more subjected to the toxin effect. Love our children but love them the correct way. Not everything that taste good for us will be good for them.  

To drink or not to drink:
China and Russia ban all Fonterra import. Malaysia recall certain milk powder brand. Fonterra Malaysia assure all Anmum product are safe to consume. 

Botulism is one of the most potent, lethal neurotoxin known. The neurotoxin is produced by bacteria called Clostridium botulinum and it paralyzes the person muscles and can be deadly.
The respiratory failure and paralysis that occur with severe botulism may require a patient to be on a breathing machine (ventilator) for weeks or months. The paralysis slowly improves. Botulism can be treated with an antitoxin which blocks the action of toxin circulating in the blood.