Health and safety audit results heard in Scottish Parliament
Legionnaires’ disease has infected 44 individuals and left two dead. The giant health and safety risk that occurred still has Scotland reeling enough to have Scottish Parliament involved. The HSE team dealing with the outbreak and monitoring the corrections spoke to the committee regarding the health and safety audit completion. Notices were given to the company regarding their cooling towers and they were given until June 29th to correct the errors. It is no wonder Parliament is concerned about what measures have been taken recently to ensure the deadline of the notices is met and the cooling towers operation to resume.
The NHS, HSE, and MSPs stated that the serious outbreak that occurred created an incidence of high numbers of individuals contracting the disease. Many have sought help and it looks as though the issue has peaked. Now, all companies with water cooling towers need to focus more on how to keep this same issue from occurring again. Training is certainly one of the biggest issues. The towers were not probably cared for in terms of the risk for the disease, allowing conditions to occur that would allow Legionella bacteria to grow. Management needs to be trained for this issue, especially by health and safety consultants who will make certain to provide ample information on the risks. The information must then be passed to the workers who will be around the towers for maintenance and cleaning to prevent such a serious breakout from occurring ever again.
