I have been preaching about World Sight Day this week, the day within the year where all focus in on our eye's health, this activity is led by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blind alongside the World Health Organization and all other health groups across the globe.
Every year there is a theme that directs the celebration and activities that may be done by the various ocular health professionals in administering care to their patients or the societies where they find themselves. This year the focus is on our eyes and our workplace, I guess we can call that occupational ocular care.
Caring for the Eye in the industry/site
I have previously talk about caring for our eyes if we find ourselves working in an office setting or have a white collar job and we learnt about lighting, glasses, glare and the likes. Today we want to look at how we could do more for the eyes if we find ourselves working in an industrial environment.
All industries have safety protocols which ought to be taken into account if you find yourself working there and most of these account ways to protect your eye and your health generally so you do not find yourself in a hazardous situation. If only we would follow these safety protocols it would be a great asset to our health and our eyes.
And so the first thing we should consider is following the safety protocols. If you find yourself working in a dusty site or a place that involves lots of chemicals moving around, there is the chance that some could splash and get into your eyes. Do well to wear your googles at all times, if your employer has not provided you with one, please do request for one.
If you work with high temperature tools and equipments that emits sparks like in the case of welders, then it is paramount that you wear filtering glasses as demanded by your job so you do not loss your sight or suffer from conditions such as welders arc or flash where these UV radiations have damaging effect on the eye.
Not to scare you but i have seen patients loss their sight to some of these simple protocols, just a splash could damage your cornea permanently, just a spark could cause irreversible scaring on your eye, not wearing that helmet could impact your eye should you experience a falling object on your head.
Conclusion
Again, not to scare you but the idea that you could have saved your sight by going by these simple safety protocols is something you would live to regret if anything happens to your eyes as a result. And so please let us learn to love our eyes at work, do not take it for granted, you will only get to appreciate the gift of sight when something bad happens, but why wait? When you can prevent it.
And so even as we continue to learn together, i do hope that this helps someone out there be more conscious of protecting their eyes at the work place. Let me also remind you to have regular eye checkups with your Optometrist, when in doubt please consult a professional and do well to avoid over the counter medication without care. Be Safe, Cheers!
Further Reading
Peate W. F. (2007). Work-related eye injuries and illnesses. American family physician, 75(7), 1017–1022..
Liu, J., & Zhang, H. (2022). Epidemiological Investigation and Risk Factor Analysis of Acute Hemorrhagic Conjunctivitis in Huangshi Port District, Huangshi City. Computational and mathematical methods in medicine, 2022, 3009589. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/3009589.
Diffey B. L. (1990). Human exposure to ultraviolet radiation. Seminars in dermatology, 9(1), 2–10..
Liu, R., Chen, Y., Liu, H., Huang, X., & Zhou, F. (2022). Epidemiological trends and sociodemographic factors associated with acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis in mainland China from 2004 to 2018. Virology journal, 19(1), 34. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12985-022-01758-6.