**9.2 The role of health and safety representatives in ensuring compliance**

All the mines must appoint a health and safety team including health and safety representatives where there are 20 or more employees. Whereas if the mine has 100 or more miners the health and safety committee should be established. The health

and safety representatives have the following major roles to play in ensuring the safety of the miners:


#### **9.3 Occupational health practioner role in health and safety standards compliance**

According to the Mine Health and Act (29 of 1996), all organizations must employ a practitioner who is in the position of qualification in occupational medicine recognized by the Interim National Medical and Dental Council of South Africa or the South African Interim Nursing Council [12]. The occupational health practitioners are the largest single group of the multidisciplinary health care team at the workplace. Therefore, OHN is the frontline in protecting and promoting the health of the working population.

The occupational health practitioner is gifted in injury or diseases preventative skills and interventions. The OHP might recognize the requirement for, survey, and plan mediations to, alter working conditions, frameworks of work, or change working practices to decrease the danger of exposure to hazards [48]. Moreover, OHP experts are skilled in thinking about factors, like human conduct and habits about real working practices. They additionally team up in the origination, and rectification of work factors, decision, and quality of protective equipment, protection of miners from injury and illnesses, just as giving guidance in issues concerning the assurance of the climate [28, 48]. The OHP close relationship with the workers, and involvement with the management, they are in a decent situation to distinguish early changes in unsafe working practices, recognize miners challenges over health and safety, and present these to management in an independent objective manner can be the catalyst for changes in the workplace that lead to primary prevention by present these to the executives in a free target way can be the motivation for changes in the work environment that lead to essential counteraction [48].

The occupational health professionals inform on a wide reach concerning medical problems, and especially on their relationship to working capacity, wellbeing, and safety at work or where alterations to the work or workspace can be made to assess the changing wellbeing status of representatives [28]. In many regards, organizations are not exclusively worried about just those conditions that are straightforwardly brought about by work however, they need occupational health professionals to assist with attending to any wellbeing related issues that might emerge that may impact the miner's participation or execution at work, and *Strategies to Enhance Compliance to Health and Safety Protocols within the South African… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100264*

numerous representatives like this degree of help being given to them at the work environment since it is so advantageous for them [43]. Specifically, the improvement of medical care administrations for miners at the workplace. With regards to this survey, the OHP plays a significant part in guaranteeing the health and safety of the miners through primary, secondary, and tertiary avoidance [49].

#### **10. Preventative strategies**

Different scholars have acknowledged that there is a gap in the literature on the management of compliance with the health and safety strategy. Moreover, scholars have also raised a concern that the impact of legal non-compliance is even more scarce in the literature [49, 50]. Previous research done by Tibane and Niemand on challenges experienced by employees relating to safety compliance emphasized the importance of the development of strategies to reduce safety threats caused by poor compliance as a result of unsafe acts [51]**.** The question is that if they are safety regulations available and miners are aware of the dangers, what is the rationale behind poor compliance with the health and safety standards [52, 53].

The strategies are aimed at can be named preventive and treatment mediations. Precaution mediations are typically presented to every one of the excavators helping them to take on well- being conduct and sound way of life unconstrained and without incidental effects fuming them to search for help. On the other hand, Bagherpour et al. argue that preventive strategies need to be applied before the incidents, but preparative adjustments must be implemented both before and after the occurrence [6]. Preventive interventions, accordingly, are named as a primary, secondary, or tertiary counteraction.

Preventative strategies are normally offered to all the miners assisting them to adopt a safe behavior and healthy lifestyle spontaneous and without side effects seething them to look for help. More importantly, the literature revealed that compliance with health and safety law involves the development and implementation of an effective health and safety preventative system and building a positive health and safety culture at work [54]. Preventive mediations, thusly, are named as primary, secondary, or tertiary prevention [55].

#### **10.1 Primary preventive strategies**

In occupational health primary, preventative strategies are aimed at eradicating risks and exposures at the workplace before they occur. This level of prevention is important because the effect has not yet occurred yet the extent of the risk is visible [56]. In the occupational health clinic, primary prevention focuses on health promotion and protection within the context of a safe and healthy work environment [21]. This is achieved through continuous health education, conducting medical surveillance, and monitoring of chronic diseases thereby enhancing employees' morale and maintaining optimal health. However, in the mining sector, the following health promotion programs are essential to promote good health and to prevent occurrences of accidents and diseases, this may include such elements as continuous health education on health and safety-related topics such as noise-induced hearing loss, chronic disease monitoring, and management, accident prevention, the importance of personal protective equipment's, medical surveillance to identify and prevent the occurrences of health- related illnesses that might be caused by the work environment. Part of primary prevention is the assessment of health risks, this is achieved through continuous inspection by the occupational health practitioners and the safety team to identify and observe the work environment and working practices that might put the miner's health at risk [21, 47]. More importantly, the health promotion activities have the potential to change the miner's health practices such as choice of a healthy diet, exercising more frequently to prevent occurrences of chronic diseases. Additionally, the primary prevention activities have the potential to reduce the incidence of injuries and accidents because miners will be having more knowledge on health-related risks that might endanger their lives.

The implementation of an educational and training programme in the mine with a specific focus on creating a culture of safety among miners and more focus on safe working conditions can therefore help overcome the challenges of non-compliance [55, 56]. Moreover, since the mining environment is considered hazardous, all the mining organization needs to conduct medical surveillance as a primary preventative strategy as stipulated by Mine Health and Safety Act (29 of 1996) [12]. The medical surveillance is done before employment, annually or bi- annually and when the miner leaves the company, this is done according to the exposure levels in a different occupation and remedial actions are initiated based on the fitness status [28].

### **10.2 Secondary prevention**

In secondary prevention, the main aim of occupational health is to diminish the impact of sickness or injury that has effectively occurred [47]. Additionally, this level of prevention put more emphasis on reinforcement and decreasing the reaction to the occupational disease or illness caused by the mining environment, thereby intensifying resistance through the provision of treatment [55]. This is achieved by distinguishing and regarding illness or injury at the earliest opportunity to end or slow its progression, encouraging safety strategies to prevent reinjury or recurrence, and implementing programs to return people to their original health and function to prevent long-term problems [56]. The secondary interventions include a regular medical examination and screening tests such as audiometry, spirometry, and vision screening. During the screening process, once the deterioration is identified further interventions such as referral to the specialist and recommendations for the removal of a miner to the occupation which will not have a further effect on the identified problem are done. The chronic disease management programme also forms part of the primary prevention strategy by constantly monitoring compliance through blood pressure and blood glucose monitoring to ensure compliance. Moreover, secondary prevention also included the advocacy to place a miner in a suitably modified work so injured or ill workers can return safely to their jobs [56].
