Pilbara Health

Pilbara Iron has adopted the Occupational Health Standards of its international parent company Rio Tinto. These standards were introduced in 2004. They provide a comprehensive system of policies and procedures to protect the health of all Pilbara Iron employees, contractors, communities and the many other people who engage with our business.

The Health Standards are divided into two groups:

A1 General Occupational Health Systems
A2 Risk Management
A3 Workplace Monitoring
A4 Medical and First Aid Treatment
A5 Occupational Medical Surveillance
A6 Records

B1 Particulate and Gas/Vapour Exposures
B2 Hearing Conservation
B3 Manual Handling and Vibration
B4 Hazardous Substances
B5 Radiation
B6 Thermal Stress
B7 Fitness For Work
B8 Legionnaires Disease
B9 Travel and Remote Site Health
B10 Occupational Exposure Limits

A brief description of each of the standards is provided below. Additional information, and current versions of each of the Standards, is available to employees by logging on to the Pilbara Iron Intranet and accessing the IronSafe website.

A. MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS STANDARDS

A1. General Occupational Health Systems
In order to satisfy this Standard, a system must:

(a) Be documented in a clear and auditable form;
(b) Be practical;
(c) Be working effectively; and
(d) Include procedures for periodic review and revision.

A2. Risk Management
To protect all who work on our sites from occupational illness in a cost-effective manner, a control programme based on exposure assessments is required. The basis of the occupational health-risk programme is that the potential risk to a person’s health is a function of both the magnitude and frequency of the exposure to the hazard and the inherent capacity of the hazard to cause harm. Businesses must develop control systems designed to eliminate or reduce exposure to hazardous agents / conditions, appropriate for the degree of risk to health. This Standard details the requirements for a suitable programme to manage the risks to health.

A3. Workplace Monitoring
If a risk assessment indicates the need, a workplace-monitoring programme is used to evaluate potential exposures and to develop controls that will protect the health of all who work on our sites. This Standard applies only to monitoring, sampling and analysis conducted within the workplace. It is not intended to extend to environmental or community monitoring, although some principles will be applicable to all monitoring programmes.

A4. Medical & First Aid Treatment
This Standard covers the provision of facilities, equipment and services for the prompt and effective treatment of injuries and illnesses, whether to employees, contractors or visitors, occurring on a site, and the transfer to other facilities for ongoing treatment where required.

Many sites have more extensive services, for instance those providing medical treatment for the local communities. The general principles given below must also be applied to these services.

A5. Occupational Medical Surveillance
Medical surveillance in these Standards is restricted to the detection of conditions caused by workplace conditions, or conditions that might be risk factors for poor adaptation to work conditions, and applies to employees and Category 1 contractors only. The use of medical examinations for improving general health or for healthier lifestyle promotion, although valid reasons for periodic medical examination, is not covered in this Standard.

A6. Records
This Standard covers creation, use and storage of occupational health and hygiene records. In cases where workers are grouped into similar exposure groups for occupational hygiene measurements, individual deployment or personnel records will be needed to enable each worker’s exposures to be re-created.

B. PERFORMANCE STANDARDS

B1. Particulate and Gas/Vapour Exposures
This Standard applies to dust, fibres, mist and fume (ie. particulates), and gas and vapour exposures in the workplace, with emphasis on inhalation as the prime route of exposure. It covers particulate and gas/vapour hazard evaluation, control programme design and control programme evaluation (medical surveillance), to ensure that employees and contractors will not suffer adverse health effects from particulates or gas/vapours, either used or generated by the Business.

B2. Hearing Conservation
This Standard applies only to noise exposures in the workplace. It covers noise hazard evaluation, control programme design and control programme evaluation (audiometric surveillance), to ensure that employees and contractors will not suffer adverse health effects from noise generated by the Business.

B3. Manual Handling and Vibration
This Standard focuses on musculo-skeletal damage that can result from manual handling and from vibration. This Standard covers musculo-skeletal hazard evaluation, control programme design and control programme evaluation, to ensure that employees and contractors will not suffer adverse health effects from poor task and equipment design, or from inappropriate behavioural practices.

B4. Hazardous Substances
This Standard applies to both dangerous goods and hazardous substances, be they process or non-process materials. It covers hazard evaluation, control programme design and control programme evaluation, to ensure that employees, contractors and third parties will not suffer adverse health effects from hazardous substances either used or generated by the Business. Local definitions of dangerous goods and hazardous substances in regulations should be adhered to by Businesses.

B5. Radiation
This Standard is applicable to workplace radiation issues associated with process monitoring, products or waste streams, and includes both ionising and non-ionising radiation. It covers radiation hazard evaluation, programme design, exposure controls and employee information, to ensure that employees, contractors and third parties will not suffer adverse health effects from radiation sources either used or generated by the Business.

B6. Thermal Stress
This Standard addresses both workplace heat stress and cold stress. It covers high temperature conditions generated by the industrial process or the mining environment, temperatures exacerbated by hot weather, and extreme cold weather conditions, that can pose a risk to health and safety of employees and contractors.

B7. Fitness For Work
This Standard applies where a risk assessment has identified that fatigue or other causes of impaired fitness for work could produce a potential for serious injury or death, significant* equipment / plant damage, or significant environmental impact. It covers programme design, management of shift systems, and personal fitness. ‘Personal fitness’ includes the person’s physical, mental and emotional state.

B8. Legionnaires Disease
This Standard applies to Legionnaires disease in the workplace. It covers Legionella hazard evaluation, control programme design and control programme evaluation, to ensure that employees, contractors and third parties will not suffer adverse health effects.

B9. Travel and Remote Site Health
This Standard covers the general travel health issues associated with temporary site visits, health issues associated with working in remote areas, and altitude sickness. It covers travel health programme design and management, to ensure that employees, contractors and third parties will not suffer adverse health effects.

B10. Occupational Exposure Limits
To protect all who work on our sites from occupational illness, workplace hazardous exposures must be controlled to below occupational exposure limit (OEL) and/or biological test limit values. The lists of substances (or agents) were derived from an assessment of business unit exposures, but do not necessarily include all hazardous exposures found within the Rio Tinto Group.