Rank: Super forum user 
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Please help me out. Our guys want to send a couple of people to Ghana and I am advising against in because of the Ebola outbreak in neighbouring countries.
However, they seem destined to go ahead.
If we send someone and they contract Ebola and subsequently die...... would this be classed as Corporate Manslaughter?
I know that currently there is no Ebola in Ghana, but with a 21 day incubation period who knows?
Thanks for your help
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Decisions like this should be linked to a risk assessment, not just 'opinion' - either to send, or not to send. Do you have such a risk assessment - you would of course need input from at least one person who understands both the hazards and what suitable controls would look like? (i.e. a competent OH provider with current experience of W Africa).
Corporate manslaughter requires 'reckless' behaviour and to judge that would also require expert opinion. If you are thinking of taking such a threatening approach to the person(s) who are authorising the trip, a) such threats that something bad 'might' happen usually don't work for those who see a strong business case for doing something; b) so you better have some 'expert opinion' on your side that there IS a significant Ebola risk to the travellers. Otherwise you're likely to be dismissed as a risk-averse 'jobsworth' with no real interest in finding ways to reduce risks whilst also supporting the business/organisation.
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This does seem a little risk averse.
Is there something we don't know? Are your staff going to be working with people who have been potentially affected by ebola?
The current Government/PHE risk assessment is that risk to travellers to known affected countries is LOW providing control measures are followed. Your staff aren't even going to an affected country.
https://www.gov.uk/gover...ment_Update_3_201014.pdf
Ebola is nasty but transmission to your staff does require some direct contact with fluids from infected individuals.
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You say contact with fluids from infected individuals but it only needs a simple handshake.
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Imwaldra
You have made a lot of assumptions based on a little information. I have completed a risk assessment for this and this states that unless the trip is absolutely necessary then visits to and from West Africa should be avoided, this has been based on information from CDC, the WHO and other professional bodies. This is, I feel, a judicious approach given that the number of cases has doubled over the last five weeks and is still growing exponentially and the mortality rate is in the region of 55%.
I have no intention of "threatening" anyone as you suggest and am quite offended that you would think so from what I wrote. I have a duty of care to these people but also to my manager who runs the organisation and has not been kept in the loop on this. I need to know where he stands legally and that was the reason for the question - not for any other purpose.
In the last 10 years we have had one lost time accident and that was back in April 2008 (we are a medium risk manufacturing engineering environment). I have been running this department in this Company for 19 years with accreditation to ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 and a British Safety Council 5 star award. I think it is unlikely I will be dismissed from my post for being cautious.
Next time, answer the question I asked or don't, this makes no difference to me, but don't go giving me advice with absolutely no knowledge of what I want the information for - it's just rude - ok.
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I was under the impression that a lot of the travel advice concerning visits to West Africa was less about Ebola itself and more about the knock-on effects i.e. reduced direct flights, reduced hospital facilities/cover etc. So that, in the case of an accident/incident, it would be harder to arrange care and recovery of an individual.
With regards Ebola and Corporate Manslaughter, the actions of the company have to be a gross breach i.e fall so far below what would be reasonably expected, in order to 'count'. Given that many people are still sending people to West Africa generally, and that PHE advice is that the risk is low (if the suggested preventative measures are followed), I would suggest that it is not at all unreasonable to do similar and that CM wouldn't realistically come into the equation.
That changes if you are in a higher risk field such as healthcare and sending people to Ebola affected regions to work with those patients without proper control but ... well, you get my drift.
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I am not entirely convinced that you judge the risk correctly. This is based on the following facts:
1. There have not been any reported cases of Ebola in Ghana
2. Ghana does not have any land borders with the main infected region Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone).
3. All people flying out of the infected countries are supposed to be checked for signs of fever
4. People coming into Ghana are being screened.
So the risk should be small. It depends where your people will be going. Out in the sticks there might be some higher risk especially if you get into contact with people from the infected countries.
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Thank your for your responses, the decision has been made to postpone the visit.
I absolutely agree that the chances of anyone contracting ebola in Ghana are slim, very slim, but if the business can be conducted without going there, then that has to be the wisest option because it removes any risk. This is just common sense. As it was, no one wanted to actually take the responsiblity "just in case" so they are not going.
I work on the basis of "how would I feel if ....." and I have to make decisions based on whether I, personally, could live with the consequences of that decision, so call me over cautious if you like but I go home every day feeling that I have done my best for everyone and not put them in an avoidable risk situation.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Hi Hilary,
The risk of transmission of Ebola from a live person is very low, up to 50% of transmission is thought to originate from corpses. In the affected areas the people most at risk are realtives of the dead and healthcare/burial workers.
Bear this in mind; Ghana has had no cases of Ebola and has no land borders with any of the affected regions. Isn't this like worrying about going to France because of an outbreak of Ebola in Greece? The USA has had at least two cases of Ebola, both in Texas, but I bet nobody is worrying about restricting travel to the USA.
FS101, you can pick up Ebola by hand contact, but only if the affected person is seriously, obviously and floridly mortally ill, and you then e.g. rub your eyes or lick your fingers,
John
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Rank: Super forum user
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Jwk
http://edition.cnn.com/2...ealth/how-ebola-spreads/
Read the bit about through breaks in the skin, and we all have breaks in the skin. Oh yes and what about a sudden sneeze?
Why is there now a new kind of "handshake?
Hilary, you have made the right decision based on the facts especially as it is a killing disease.
I like your view of if it was you, if everyone was like that there would be lots less employees exposed to risk in the workplace.
Well done.
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FS101, believe me, we have real experts on Ebola where I work, not CNN journalists, though that piece isn't wholly inaccurate; it just errs a little on the side of scaremongering. If people are not floridly & obviously ill they just don't have enough of a viral load to make transmission at all likely, so even if they cough or sneeze on you they won't give you Ebola. If they have enough viral load to be contagious then they are really really ill, and would probably not feel like shaking anybody's hand. There's some good info from Public Health England, but Ebola is not flu, or even Hep C; even where it's happening it is still hard to catch,
John
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And as for why there's a new kind of handshake? Well, rumour, myth and sacremongering are very potent, especially when people are scared,
John
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I didn't want to start a war on here :(
However, I thought the whole premise of a risk assessment was to put corrective actions in place to reduce the risk to the lowest level possible? That being the case - the decision not to go reduces the risk to the lowest level possible.
But I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong ;)
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Hi Hilary,
I do agree with your statements about the purpose of risk assessment, but there are two really very important things to consider in my view: Ghana has had no cases of Ebola and has no borders with any of the affected countries, so it may well be that the risk is already as low as it can be. Consider that the USA has had two cases, Spain has had one, Ghana has had none. Where is the risk higher or lower? The other thing to consider is; what are the risks (to the business for example) of your people not going?
You are probably very much more likely to die in a traffic accident in Ghana than you are to contract Ebola. Would that encourage you to discourage people from going there?
I do not see any case for corporate manslaughter here, to refer to your original question,
John
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jwk's comment about traffic death should be taken very seriously by anyone contemplating overseas travel.
If we agree the risk to workers from vehicle collisions in UK is significant (check the numbers) then how much greater is the exposure in some other countries where traffic conditions are very different (eg Italy, Egypt, India, China)?
Whilst the risks of mugging, kidnap and disease may be considered in a pre-trip risk assessment, how many of us factor in the likelihood of being involved in a traffic incident?
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Rank: Super forum user
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I think part of the problem is the use of unhelpful labels such as West Africa; in reality this encompasses an enormous geographical area with very different cultures, climates and recent experiences of civil turmoil. Accra and Monrovia are 730 miles apart as the crow files, that's only 50 miles short of the distance between Madrid and London, but few people in the UK lost too much sleep about an Ebola case in Spain. Given that there's no land border between Ghana and the nearest centre of infection, any transmission would have to be via an air flight, and Ebola is no more likely to travel from Liberia/Sierra Leone to Ghana by air than it is to London; in fact the evidence is that it's more likely to travel to the USA than anywhere. So if we think of West Africa as one bloc we might take one view, but in reality it's a bit more nuanced than that.
By the way, just to explain my interest here, we have people working in the treatment centres in Sierra Leone....
And thanks to David for a very good point, our security adviser (who's job is overseas deployment) does take road traffic very seriously, and it does cause most of our nail-biting incidents for our people overseas,
John
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To put this risk into context: last week an employee asked me about the risk of travelling to East Africa in connection with Ebola. I reassured them that Kenya was at least 2000 miles from the Ebola outbreak area and therewas no significant risk. I then asked them where they intended to travel in Kenya and they said in the east up near the border with Somali. A quick look at the FCO website confirms that this an area that Britons are advised not to visit, ever due to the risk from Somali gangs/terrorists.
She hadn’t even thought about this as Ebola is the current risk of the week not Somali terrorism/piracy( so last year).
Risk perception is a funny thing.
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How many people would worry about going to Turkey. Yet I saw a map recently of countries with a high risk of kidnapping, and Turkey was one of those! I think it is all about keeping things in the correct perspective.
Chris
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Excellent thread this, and a good one to come back to when discussing risk significance.
Everyone's contributions have made for interesting reading - we have so many situations in our day to day work where our underlying understanding of the issues makes risk control easy. When we're confronted by something outside our normal routine it can be a real challenge to understand all the angles, which is what they pay us for ;)
I'm really glad this was brought up.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Oops, it appears this is a story from July but for some reason dated today :(
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hilary wrote:Imwaldra
You have made a lot of assumptions based on a little information. I have completed a risk assessment for this and this states that unless the trip is absolutely necessary then visits to and from West Africa should be avoided, this has been based on information from CDC, the WHO and other professional bodies. This is, I feel, a judicious approach given that the number of cases has doubled over the last five weeks and is still growing exponentially and the mortality rate is in the region of 55%.
I have no intention of "threatening" anyone as you suggest and am quite offended that you would think so from what I wrote. I have a duty of care to these people but also to my manager who runs the organisation and has not been kept in the loop on this. I need to know where he stands legally and that was the reason for the question - not for any other purpose.
In the last 10 years we have had one lost time accident and that was back in April 2008 (we are a medium risk manufacturing engineering environment). I have been running this department in this Company for 19 years with accreditation to ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 and a British Safety Council 5 star award. I think it is unlikely I will be dismissed from my post for being cautious.
Next time, answer the question I asked or don't, this makes no difference to me, but don't go giving me advice with absolutely no knowledge of what I want the information for - it's just rude - ok.
This is a case of ask a stupid question and get a stupid answer. The little information was supplied by you if you don't want a response don't ask !!!!
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Thank you for your response ptaylor14. Iwaldra and I discussed this via inbox and we are totally cool, however, you will be pleased to know that you are the first person on this site that I have felt a need to report.
Congratulations.
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hilary wrote:Thank you for your response ptaylor14. Iwaldra and I discussed this via inbox and we are totally cool, however, you will be pleased to know that you are the first person on this site that I have felt a need to report.
Congratulations.
Bovvered !!!!
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hilary wrote:I didn't want to start a war on here :(
However, I thought the whole premise of a risk assessment was to put corrective actions in place to reduce the risk to the lowest level possible? That being the case - the decision not to go reduces the risk to the lowest level possible.
But I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong ;)
Just my view..Any decent risk assessment should contain control measures which are proportionate to the level of risk. Anyone can include loads of unnecessary and over the top control measures to reduce a risk to zero...Not sure stopping people from doing their jobs is a positive way forward as it smacks of a very unhelpful, ban everything just incase culture.
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stonecold wrote:hilary wrote:
However, I thought the whole premise of a risk assessment was to put corrective actions in place to reduce the risk to the lowest level possible?
Just my view..Any decent risk assessment should contain control measures which are proportionate to the level of risk. Anyone can include loads of unnecessary and over the top control measures to reduce a risk to zero...Not sure stopping people from doing their jobs is a positive way forward as it smacks of a very unhelpful, ban everything just incase culture.
Well, I agree with some part of what I think you intend to say - the premise of a risk assessment is clearly NOT that risks be reduced to the lowest level possible, since the outcome of any risk assessment would then be "don't do it - stay in bed'". Pretty much every statement I have ever seen from HSE on risk assessments makes it clear it is not intended that all risks be eliminated or even reduced to the lowest possible level (eg "You do not need to include insignificant risks" or "you do not need to take action if it would be grossly disproportionate to the level of risk").
However I disagree that "Anyone can include ... control measures to reduce a risk to zero". There are a lot of risks that cannot be reduced to zero. Most of the risks I put on an assessment cannot be reduced all the way to zero, even if I did invoke grossly disproportionate controls.
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Surely any risk can be reduced to Zero if you totally eliminate the risk? (Hierarchy of control) Elimination E.g no longer do the thing thats created the risk / hazard.
Not always practical obviously but definitely possible.
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Achrn and stonecold - you are both saying exactly the same thing but in a slightly different way. You seem to think you are disagreeing.
It does depress me that people working in safety think their job is to "reduce risk to the lowest level possible." Our job should be to advise our employers how they can conduct their business safely, which is quite different. This is what Achrn and stonecold are both saying.
Based on the responses from a number of people to this question, the decision to not go to Ghana is not based on any assessment of actual risk. It does make we wonder why people ask questions here but don't pay attention to the responses given. I do think there is an element of kettle and pot in posting #25
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hilary wrote:Please help me out. Our guys want to send a couple of people to Ghana and I am advising against in because of the Ebola outbreak in neighbouring countries.
However, they seem destined to go ahead.
If we send someone and they contract Ebola and subsequently die...... would this be classed as Corporate Manslaughter?
I know that currently there is no Ebola in Ghana, but with a 21 day incubation period who knows?
Thanks for your help
Just returned from Ghana. I did a full risk assessment prior to the team deploying and although it was considered and additional precautions taken the trip went ahead. Hils I haven't read all of the thread but maybe you could share your risk assessment incase I have missed something? But even the US team that was next to us weren't as risk averse as you seem to be.
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I wasn't going to respond again but here goes ....
Thank you to those who work in the medical arena - obviously this is your sphere of expertise in the same way that manufacturing and mechanical engineering is mine. You have a need to go to Ghana and other parts of Africa, this is not optional and, therefore, you have a lot of control measures and expert knowledge to help you come to your decisions - that's good and exactly how it should be.
My sphere is mechanical and manufacturing engineering so when I was asked about a potential visit to Ghana, I had to put the risk assessment process in place.
Utilising the hierarchy of control and starting at the top, I used the question "do we NEED to go to Ghana or can any potential risk (no matter how slim) be eliminated by simply not going?". Clearly, it transpired that we did not NEED to go to Ghana at all and we were able to substitute a face to face meeting with Lync meetings and video conferencing. We also asked the employees who were supposed to be going, one was happy to go, the other was not.
Therefore, although my reasoning seems strange to some of you and I appear completely batty to the rest - I believe that if a risk can be eliminated or substituted at source, then this is what should happen.
Risk averse? No, I work in a medium heavy mechanical engineering plant - you cannot be risk averse and continue to function fully, but like all risk assessments, if the risk can be avoided then it should be.
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Hi Hilary,
I understand what you are saying, and I don't want to labout the point, but why did you rate Ghana as a country at risk from Ebola? It has had no cases....
John
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Hi Hilary,
You have to be in INTIMATE contact with an infected case which is showing symptoms, i.e. family members, medical staff.
As one eminent microbiologist put it some weeks, "the kind of people who might see you naked".
Can't you instruct your employees where to go and where not to go?
What to do and what not to do?
Allan,
Dubai.
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I did not rate Ghana as a country with Ebola - I merely said that it was in the region affected by Ebola (West Africa in general) and that the incubation period was 21 days and Ebola was spreading at an alarming rate. I did actually say that I know Ghana currently has no cases.
However, I felt, as the trip was not necessary, that it was prudent not to go.
Rest assured good people of this forum, I have certainly learnt my lesson from asking all you allegedly brilliant people for a sensible response. All I have had is abuse and made to feel about 1" tall - I won't ask again.
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Hilary
I am not sniping at you personally but this does raise an interesting question (in my mind any way) –why did someone want to go to Ghana in the first place (ignoring the Ebola issue)?
One minute the trip to Ghana is seen as absolutely vital and well worth the expense and hassle, the next it’s “we can do this all with Skype” and save ourselves some money.
In the public sector, we are always being accused of going off on “jollies” and being told use video conferencing etc rather than having meetings it face to face.
Is ‘elf & safety’ being used as an excuse –again- for not doing something?
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We put out bulletins about world events from time to time, the latest being the Ebola outbreak in Western Africa. We visit people all over the world and conduct on site repairs in all sorts of environments from oil rigs to Siberian gas plants. Sometimes our guys get to site and their passports are siezed and they are not permitted to leave site until the job is complete (yes, really!). I did not want our after sales guys getting to an area in West Africa and then being transported all around the region to different areas which may have included Sierra Leone or Liberia, etc. without their passports and, basically, with no option so it was recommended, for this reason, that we do not visit West Africa unless the trip is totally unavoidable.
Sales then proposed a visit and asked if they could go - well, the same rule should apply to all. The risk I know is very very low for this particular visit, but if sales can visit why can't after sales? The recommendation was that they did not go. This was only a recommendation, they were still free to go if they wanted. It transpired that they really didn't need to go and so the trip was cancelled.
And that is it .... my last post on the subject.
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The information from the media and government sources indicate that the kill rate of Ebola was at first put at 50% then at 70% (when in the real world it is closer to 90% and is a 'Hot' potato and in some quarters species threatening) The truth is, people tell lies for their own agenda. Even where I live there is a large note of the doctors surgery giving out instructions relating to Ebola so I would humbly suggest that people sit up a little here.
It has been caught by so-called experts in their field.
It would seems to me that Hillary is correct in her view. It would also seem that the only reason for the trip is money and not to help then it shows the state of the world.
As for 'not easy to spread', next time you see a person with a black face with sweat of their brow walk toward you holding a hand out for you to shake your response will be...?
And then you'll go home to the family and maybe have a bad nights sleep?
As A Kurdziel says, quite correctly, could not Skype be used?
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"It has been caught by so-called experts in their field"
You know what I'm not going to let that one pass.
Medical professionals sometimes make a calculated risk not that they can reduce the risks they take to zero but that the social good they do will out weigh the risks to themselves and in the case of the Ebola outbreak some of these people have lost this gamble, but they have put themselves in harms way for the greater good, to mock their knowledge and professionalism to back up some half baked conspiracy theory beggars belief.
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Not so. The people that know the risks are the ones we depend on. To make a 'calculated' risk and get it wrong, puts others at risk.
I dare say that most people who have been killed by working on live conductors knew the risks but took a chance. Sorry, I'm not buying that little gem.
What I said is the truth. It has been caught by 'so called experts'. One, hailed as a hero at the time, managed to spread it.
A calculated risk is ok if it is only the person taking the risk that is being harmed. I for one do not feel the need to get Ebola due to someone talking a risk that can be avoided.
As for 'mocking the professionalism' by catching and spreading the thing, I'll let that remark pass.
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