Chapter 5: Extension and expansion projects

Many of us have spent our working lives focused on improving the safety, health and wellbeing of workers through a commitment to prevention through design (PtD) and operation analysis and control (OAC). With an annual worldwide work-related death toll of 2.3 million there is no room for complacency and a real sense of urgency. But for most of us, 2.3 million is just a number, a shocking statistic; but nonetheless it doesn’t have flesh, it doesn’t walk among us. Yet behind every one of those numbers is a person with a family and friends. A person whose influence and impact affects hundreds in so many different ways. And for those of us who have worked in the ‘safety business’, while saddened at each fatal injury event we learn of, we are never so battle-hardened that the impact is lessened. And that impact is the greatest when it is someone we know and someone we care for who dies ‘at work’. Let it be our job to ensure that, whether it is a building extension or expansion or any other project for that matter, our actions are predicated with a concern for and commitment to safe and healthy workplaces that enhance workers’ wellbeing in the process.