Workers' health: Infirmaries for the Togo yards

Workers' health is very much at the heart of the President of the EBOMAF Group. There are enormous resources allocated to this aspect in order to preserve and guarantee the well-being of workers on the construction sites. Although this is a requirement of the legislation regulating work, the Burkinabe Group is one of the few in the sub-region to comply with it. Confirming its concern to promote corporate social responsibility. In addition to complying with the legal provisions, as it has always been, EBOMAF has placed the health of its employees at the centre of its growth and expansion priorities.

Since 12 September 2011, two brand new modern infirmaries have been ordered and installed at Lomé and Dapaong bases in Togo. The unit in the Togolese capital has already recorded its eighty-ninth visitor on Monday, 10 October 2011. This care unit now solves in real time the medical needs of all staff. It follows up agents in a curative and preventive manner. The infirmary intervenes in care and awareness-raising activities. The prevention of occupational risks also plays an important role in benefits. Public health problems are thus constantly overcome on site. And concerns, anxieties related to work accidents and diseases are gradually dispelling.

At the headquarters of the Togolese branch, health issues are entrusted to a doctor at work, Dr Esso-simna Akaya, who is very experienced and has more than twenty years of experience. This high-ranking Togolese health authority worked successively at the Togolese Office of Phosphates (OTP) as a medical officer in charge of medical and social services, at the International Labour Office before being currently the national coordinator of the ILO/Sida programme in Togo. In his new sanatorium, he was assisted by Ibrahim Salou. The most common pathologies are traumatic injuries, high blood pressure, typical ulcerative syndrome, simple or severe malaria, etc. On-site treatment is appropriate to staff satisfaction.

The choice of carers also joins the EBOMAF Group's traditional view of the primacy of competence. For President Mahamadou Bonkoungou, a Group that aims to raise itself higher, must arm itself with the real assets of its development. His company did not hesitate for a moment to marry the provisions of the Labour Code: "The company must provide a self-sustaining security service with one or more doctors, nurses and other occupational safety and health specialists" also and above all, "the employer must make available to the healthcare staff suitable premises, medical equipment, medicines and biomedical consumables". For example, healthy workers in a healthy environment with a permanent look at their health can only work calmly to the influence of the company.

The infirmary section includes a consultation desk, an infusion booth and an intensive care room only. Other compartments are equipped with medical equipment to assist in emergency when injured on construction sites or agents with diseases such as malaria, diarrhoea... The units have new equipment and a large stock of medical products to effectively treat all visitors. "It's a relief. Because before that, it's the CEO who pays out money himself to get the workers out of the base.

This time is over. The small injuries that we often suffer in the change of tires will be treated on the spot," said Hamza Sibabé, one of the heads of the pneumatic section at EBOMAS-Togo. Psychological awareness sessions and skin disorders (gale, moth...) are given to workers with a particular focus on sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and many other pathologies.

A. BANG