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DOLE issues guidelines for TB-free workplace 

Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas issued Department Order No. 73-05, Series of 2005 or the Guidelines for the implementation of Policy and Program on Tuberculosis prevention and control in the workplace.

Launched in July this year, DO 73-05 requires that all private companies shall have a TB policy and program that has the following requirements: prevention, treatment, and restoration to work as part of social policies. This DO shall form part of the company’s occupational safety and health and other related workplace program.

Starting August 15 of this year, all private companies must have a policy and program on tuberculosis prevention and control in the workplace.

“We need to issue this DO to ensure that workers are informed of the high prevalence of TB in the country and in the community, and to prevent it from occurring or recurring. Also, this DO would inform the workers on how they could obtain free diagnostic examinations and access to free TB treatment through the DOTS Center,” said Sto. Tomas in her speech during the launching of DO 73-05 at the Occupational Safety and Health Center (OSHC).

DOTS or Directly-Observed Short Course is a strategy under the Comprehensive and Unified Policy for TB Control in the Philippines. It utilizes a very successful method where a treatment partner records the daily intake of the patient’s TB drugs. This ensures that the 6 to 8 months TB treatment regimen is fully complied with.

The DOLE labor inspectors are tasked to enforce DO73-05 following the labor standards enforcement framework.

Tuberculosis (TB) has been a public health concern since the 1950s. But even with the nationwide campaign against TB for decades now, latest statistics show that the Philippines has a long way to go in controlling the spread of this disease with 75 Filipinos dying from it everyday as based in the 2003 data from the Philippine Tuberculosis Initiatives for the Private Sector (PhilTIPS). And majority of those afflicted is in their most economically productive years, like workers.

TB has been associated with poverty and poor hygiene but little did we know that TB could also be work-related due to direct inhalation of chemicals and dusts in the workplace which are violations of appropriate occupational safety and health standards.

(DOLE/PIA)