Posted By Tyler
Hi All,

I know this has already been discussed and I also know that good quality eyewear is optically perfect and we should have no problems. The only cause for concern is if the eye wear is dirty or scratched.

However, One of my colleagues visited the optician complaining of headaches. The optician has said that his eye sight is okay and no prescription is needed. Upon hearing this my colleague remarked upon the headaches and announced that he has to wear safety glasses and showed the optician the pair he wears. The optician then commented that wearing the glasses over long periods will cause eye strain!!

Firstly. He only wears his protection a total of less than half the day (in 30 minute intervals due to job rotation).

Secondly the eye wear is optical class 1 and meets BS EN 166 and as such should be optically perfect.

Thirdly, the eye wear was clean and scratch free, but even so we replaced them with a brand new pair, which he tried for a week and said there was no improvement.

My questions are:

What is the optician basing their comments on? (Should I ask them to justify their comment?)

What should I do now? (The wearing of eye protection is mandatory when carrying out a certain task, which is carried out for 30 minutes at a time.)

Is this a ploy to move off the job on to another in the organisation? If so what can I do about it?

Has anyone else heard of comments like these coming from opticians?

Your thoughts and comments are welcome!

Tyler

Posted By Mr Tony Bish
May not be the optical quality that is causing the problem. Some of our staff reported problems of headaches when wearing eye protection,again no obvious vision problems and when cleaned or replaced there was no improvement. The orignal design was a hard pastic frame and side arms.
Since changing to a different design - one that closely follows the contours of the face and has soft feel nose bridge and adjustable side arms , the reported problems appear to have been overcome.
We also issued the eye glasses in a UV tint - which with them looking more like sun / ski glasses - has during the summer months envcouraged them to be worn.

Posted By Frank Hallett
Hi Tyler

In answer to your questions

What is the optician basing their comments on? (Should I ask them to justify their comment?) - YES.

What should I do now? (The wearing of eye protection is mandatory when carrying out a certain task, which is carried out for 30 minutes at a time.) - Undertake activity, PPE and employee focussed research to determine whether the glasses provided are really suitable for that individual in that situation. This is no different to any provision of PPE, there really are people who are outside the standard 95percentile for which PPE items are normally designed.

Is this a ploy to move off the job on to another in the organisation? If so what can I do about it? - This is not a question that we can answer as we have no idea of the personalities and situation involved.
See above first and then talk with your HR Dept if you have one or buy-in suitable expertise.

Has anyone else heard of comments like these coming from opticians?
- Yes, but their opinion has to be substantiated in writing to enable you to make valid and reasonable responses.

Frank Hallett

Posted By KB
Frank

I myself had an issue with wearing safety galsses. It was a site rule for the project I was working on at the time.

I too visited an optician. My optician was an opthalmic one too. My eyesight was tested and found to be normal. However, it was found that the type of galsses used (in this case they were the wrap around type) caused me as an individual a problem because of the archial lense. The lense itself did not cause a strain to my eyesight it was the arc (the cirvature) of the lense that caused me a problem.

Some of my personnel also had this issue. We sourced various types of glasses that were trialed before we used them by the union appointed safety committee representatives and this eased a lot of issues with personell. This was because in general the concensus was if the union reps said they were ok there were a lot less complaints.

This was my finding anyway.

Good luck with you research