Participants at a session of the Employee Health and Wellbeing Conference.

The Employee Health and Wellbeing Conference was held recently with the theme “Global Action Plan: Protect Worker Health - Let the Business Thrive.”
Supported by Qatar’s Supreme Council of Health, the event was held under the patronage of Minister for Public Health HE Abdulla bin Khalid al-Qahtani. It aims to propagate high quality healthcare of society’s major asset - human capital.
In his presentation, ExxonMobil cluster occupational health manager Dr Stephen Jones said the implementation of well-known occupational health practices must include health risk assessment and control, medical surveillance of workers, robust fitness for duty assessments, and adequate emergency response to deal with workplace injuries and illnesses.
He also stressed the importance of occupational health in education and training of workers and managers, as well as their individual responsibilities.
A panel session was also held to highlight the importance of employees’ health as compared to employees’ safety. As an example, monitoring employee health and safety in the aviation sector has been a difficult challenge.
A separate session dedicated to addressing these issues was conducted by leaders of the airline industry represented by Qatar Airways, British Airways and Etihad Airways.
About disasters, remote and pandemic health planning, conference speakers addressed various subjects covering occupational exposure to communicable diseases and disaster management.
From the Ebola virus that affected the West African mining operations to centralising contractor healthcare at Wasit, a Saudi Aramco mega project site, speakers shared their experiences on various incidents.
The conference has received major endorsement from leading professional development bodies who also presented their views.