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.