The second NUS Annual Safety and Health Award Ceremony was held on 21 February 2006. Two awards were given out in this ceremony - the Annual Safety and Health Performance Award (ASHPA) and Safety Innovation Team Programme (SITP) award. This year saw the largest participation rate for the SITP so far, with a total of 14 teams.

The award ceremony was attended by more than 240 staff and students. A new category, "Certificate of Merit with Commendation", was created for the ASHPA awards to recognize departments which have developed certain strong key elements of their Safety Management System.

Prof Tan Chorh Chuan, Deputy President and Provost of NUS,  in his opening address outlined the progress the university made in occupational safety and health over the past one year. He also emphasized that as educators, it is important for NUS to maintain strict safety standards in our laboratories and workshops as these become examples for our students on safety and health best practices. He further encouraged the faculties to incorporate safety and health training into the curriculum.

Mr Ameerali Abdeali, General Manager of the Occupational Safety and Health Training Center, Ministry of Manpower, followed with a speech on the importance of safety culture and workflow design in the workplace. He also talked about the new national Occupational Safety and Health framework, which stresses on reducing the risk at the source and implementing SMS and the target set by MOM to half the number of workplace accidents in Singapore by 2015.

A total of 22 departments participated this year for the ASHPA awards, of which two departments deserved special mention - the Department of Physics, which is the only department so far to have progressed from receiving the Certificate of Merit to receiving the Silver award, as well as the Department of Community, Occupational & Family Medicine, which has won the Gold award for the second year running.

[See article on COFM's success story elsewhere in this issue]

Winner of the AHSPA Gold Award

Professor David Koh Head of COFM receiving the ASHPA Gold Award from Professor Tan

Two notable ASHPA award winners gave a presentation on the measures they had implemented to improve safety in their faculties. They were Professor Foo Swee Cheng of the Dept of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, and Professor David Koh, from the Dept of Community, Occupational & Family Medicine.

The award ceremony also recognized the SITP participants, who presented innovative solutions ranging from entirely-computerized management software systems, to training tools on safe handling of compressed gases based on Macromedia software.

 

Winners of the SITP Gold Award
x-ZARD Department of COFM	LOTUS Department of Physics

One of the highlights of the ceremony was a live demonstration of OSHE's Chemical Exchange Portal. This system aims to minimize wastage by allowing departments to put their list of surplus chemicals on the intranet for other departments to request, alleviating the need to procure more from external sources.
 

Demonstration of the Chemical Exchange Portal

Group photos of award winners are available at
http://www.nus.edu.sg/osh/shday2006/album/index.htm,
and the complete list of participants is included below.

The webcast can also be viewed here (Part 1 and Part 2).
 

ASHPA PRIZE PRESENTATION	SITP PRIZE PRESENTATION
Certificate of Participation	Certificate of Participation
NUS Centre for the Arts Office of Human Resources	Hazard Busters Dept of Pathology
	WONDER
Merit Award	Dept of Restorative Dentistry
Faculty of Dentistry Dept of Mech Engrg Dept of Surgery Dept of Building Dept of Architecture	DENTLAB3 Dept of Dentistry EIGHT Dept of Civil Engrg
Merit with Special Commendation	Bronze Award
Dept of Civil Engrg Dept of Electrical & Computer Engrg Dept of Medicine Dept of Pathology Dept of Physiology Laboratory Animals Centre Dept of Biological Sciences Dept of Chemistry Office of Estate & Development	FOD Maintenance Faculty of Dentistry Safety Nutz Dept of Biochemistry miniOSHE LAC Laboratory Animals Centre
Silver Award Dept of Anatomy Dept of Pharmacology Dept of Physics	EYES Dept of Pharmacology EASI Dept of Pharmacy
Gold Award Dept of Community, Occupational & cine	Silver Award PROBERS Dept of Chemical & Biomolecular Engrg
	PILLAR Dept of Civil Engrg
	CONSTRUCT Dept of Civil Engrg
	Gold Award LOTUS Dept of Physics
	x-ZARD Dept of Community, Occupational & Family Medicine