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DRAFT SPEECH BY DR HON HENRIETTA IP, OBE, JP LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 29.10.86
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Motion on Factories & Industrial Undertakings (Safety Officers & Safety Supervisors) Regulations 1986
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Medicine has now advanced to such a stage that only congenital diseases claim mortality of our very young and cardiovascular diseases and cancer claim the mortality of our very old. People who fall between these 2 extreme categories
of age enjoy excellent health, save for what modern technology has brought accidental deaths and injuries.
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What we are
concerned with today, are the Factories & Industrial Undertakings (Safety Officers & Safety Supervisors) Regulations 1986, which serve to reduce these occupational hazards and industrial accidents which kill and maim our working force.
This is the beginning of Government's attempt in preventive Medicine by extending its protective arms beyond that of the hospital, the clinic, the home, and into our place
of work.
These Regulations indicate that our Government wants to encourage and initiate proprietors to employ their own professional and in-house Safety Officers and Supervisors, without withdrawing Government's commitment to offer advice and support through the Factory Inspectorate Division of the Labour Department.
Some may question whether an employer will listen to the advice of a staff whom he has the power to appoint and dismiss. Frankly I see no difference between this and :
(1) the auditor whom a company appoints to
scrutinize its own accounts,
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