AN APPRAISAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH & SAFETY MANAGEMENT IN THE WORKPLACE : A STUDY OF CONTINENTAL SHIPYARD LIMITED

There is need to ensure that in everything we do the safety of human life is given the utmost priority. Human life is priceless and the strongest desire of every normal person is to stay healthy and alive, that is why itis unfortunate when a life is lost due to an accident that could have been prevented. The need for persons and organizations to conduct their affairs in a manner that ensures safety of human life, property and the environment can therefore not be over emphasized. The primary aim of this study is to find out the health, safety andenvironmental policies, equipments and programmes that are in place in an employee work environment by Continental Shipyard Limited (CSL) Apapa. Deriving from the stated aim the study will endeavour to find out the following evaluation of the workers understanding of health safety and environmental issues and appraise the health, safety and environmental facilities and practices in Continental Shipyard Limited. The research design adopted for this study is the field survey which involves visits to the Continental Shipyard Limited located at Dockyard Road Apapa. The sample comprised of fifty-five (55) employees of Continental Shipyard Limited consisting of thirty (30) junior workers both technical and manual, ten (10) Managers, ten (10) supervisors and five (5) safety officers who were randomly selected from theentire workforce. The validity and reliably of the questionnaire was certified in terms of content by peer review and multi-stage pilot testing. Major findings from the research study showed that the challenge of maintaining health, safety and environment were tremendous. Workers in terms of their health and organizations suffered more due to loss of personnel, man-hour and destruction of properties and equipment. In conclusion, it was noted that Continental Shipyard Limited really put in place necessary health and safety equipments but most of these were not adequately managed and maintained to handle emergencies and dangers to avert deaths. It is recommended that the employees must be properly educated to understand what health, safety and environment in the work place is all about, intimated on job hazards, and that proper work procedures are followed; all pure job test especially, should be carried out to make sure that wrong personnel is not hired.