WHEN DO YOU NEED AN OCCUPATIONAL HYGIENIST

Health Canada has provided the following guidelines for the use of an occupational hygienist in their publication CANADIAN HANDBOOK ON HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT, Volume 3.

It would be particularly advantageous to engage the services of an accredited occupational hygienist to maximize the protection of all concerned if your work involves or is being initiated as a result of:

• the laying of charges
  
• an order being made under a regulation
  
• a prescribed assessment
  
• a health-based formal work refusal
  
• other questions of compliance
  
• testimony of an expert
  
• a facility audit (or project. Design, process or purchase review) requiring anticipation and/or recognition of health hazards, and/or leading to
  
• identification of critical/likely contaminants and significant exposure scenarios (i.e. risk assessment)
  
• exposure to new, developmental or poorly characterized environments and/or contaminants (e.g. those without regulatory exposure limit)
  
• concurrent exposure to multiple contaminants or involving multiple media
  
• (potential) exposure to serious contaminants with irreversible effects such as carcinogens, mutagens, reproductive toxicants, sensitizers
  
• exposure that shows significant (e.g. more than 10-fold) temporal and or spatial variability
  
• a situation in which health effects are occurring, or symptoms are being reported
  
• an evaluation pursuant to a worker's compensation claim
  
• Development of a control program:
  
• Hearing conservation
  
• Respiratory protection, or other Personal Protective Equipment
  
• Designated substances
  
• A multi-professional (physician, engineer, etc.) undertaking
  
• development of an occupational hygiene training program
  

auditing an existing occupational hygiene program

HELP FOR YOUR WORKPLACE HEALTH PROGRAM

Assessing workplace exposures is too often seen as a simple clerical function. The amount of material in the air is simply compared to the value in the TLV® booklet. If the amount of material in the air is less than the number in the book, everything is acceptable.

This is often not true. The TLVs are concentrations which, if not exceeded, will not generally cause adverse effects to the exposed worker. Exposure levels were developed as guidelines or recommendations in the control of potential health hazards and are not fine lines between safe and unsafe exposures. The TLVs were written for use by persons trained in the discipline of industrial hygiene.

Manitoba workplace legislation requires that the TLVs be applied properly as defined by the Committee that established them.

To help workplaces protect workers by using the TLVs as intended OHG Consulting, with the Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba, Community Initiatives and Research Program has developed a guidance manual to help you.

To obtain a copy of the guideline go to: http://adjustingtlvs.com/