Low key, high value: Hong Kong occupational hygienists toil for safer workplaces

As occupational settings proliferate in number and variety, a Labour Department team is charged with identifying long-term dangers

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Duncan Wong Man-ho is part of a team of occupational hygienists that was established in 1977. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 4:32pm, 11 Feb 2016Updated: 4:56pm, 11 Feb 2016

They do not grab headlines during construction accidents, but a group of government officers is charged with the difficult task of identifying long-term hazards in the workplace, with an increasing number of site inspections.

“You’ll see the occupational safety team at the big-scale accidents,” said senior occupational hygienist Cheung Hon-chung. “Our work is mostly focused on environmental hazards that typically have a gradual but long-term effect on people.”

Occupational hygienist officers, numbering fewer than 30 and working for the Labour Department, regularly assess workplace environments such as construction sites, office spaces and other kinds of working areas. Their objective is to identify hazardous practices or substances that could pose long-term harm to employees.

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With large-scale infrastructure construction like the Hong Kong Zhuhai Macau Bridge, the number of workplaces containing possible dangers grew, and the tasks confronting occupational hygienists became as significant as those of safety teams.

But Cheung said he and his colleagues had increasingly looked at office spaces too, as afflictions related to long-term sitting became more rampant.

Occupational hygienist Duncan Wong Man-ho said his team tested levels of dangerous gas at factories as well as dust particles at tunnel sites. He said he and his colleagues also monitored restaurants to ascertain whether office spaces and the areas allocated for dishwashing, among other situations, were too cramped.

“Sometimes we get emergencies, such as cases in which cleaners could have mixed the wrong kinds of cleaning agents together, possibly creating poisonous fumes,” said Wong. “These situations could cost lives.”

Assessments could also examine the way waiters lifted and carried food and the working environments inside kitchens, he added.