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Health & Safety

Who are we?

The Occupational Health and Safety Department (H&S) is the coordinating center within the University to determine health and safety standards and practices, raise awareness and provide relevant training sessions, monitor activities and when necessary, respond to any situation. Below is a table summarizing key pillars of the Department.

Mission

Maintaining safe and healthy working conditions by fostering a culture focused on awareness, open communication, safety education and supervision, and safe working methods.

H&S Goals

The H&S goals have been driven from AU’s Strategic Pillars

  • Goal 1

    Safety: We work in making safety and welfare not a program but rather a philosophy.

  • Goal 2

    Commitment: Committed to maintaining the premier level of safety, health, and welfare at AU. Committed to raising the health and safety awareness levels of the AU community.

  • Goal 3

    Awareness: Continually increase the knowledge and skillsets of our faculty, staff and students on different topics related to health and safety.

  • Goal 4

    Collaboration: For continued success, we embrace new ideas and encourage faculty, staff, and students to look for improvements in everything we do.

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Six Pillars of H&S

Policies and Procedures

The development and regular review of H&S policies, procedures, safe work instructions forms and checklists to ensure that H&S complies with all legislative requirements and as far as is practicable mitigates the risk of injury to all AU’s community.

Incident/Hazard Management

The provision of a reporting and investigation system to enable the appropriate follow up of all incidents and hazards.

Awareness

The identification and provision of appropriate H&S training for internal AU community and external organizations.

Healthy Living Committee

Engage staff and students in health and safety events and functions to promote health and wellbeing.

Health & Wellbeing (Clinic)

Provide medical assistance and services on campus.

Safety Inspections

Ensure a safe, secure, and healthy environment by monitoring risks in buildings and services.

Positive attributes of the University’s current approach to health and safety management include:
  • A qualified, motivated team to fulfil safety monitoring to support risk management activities and provide competent training to elevate safety knowledge of both internal and external community.
  • A well-established suite of health and safety policies and procedures.
  • Effective collaboration with schools to link health and safety to the curriculum.
  • The Department uses a range of different proactive means to raise awareness regarding health and safety across the campus and promote healthy habits.
  • Coordination of the Healthy Living Committee which is open to all students and staff who are interested to organize and promote healthy living activities. The Committee’s programs were awarded many prizes from notable organizations.

AU Clinic

The most visible presence of the Health and Safety Department is the AU Clinic which is staffed by nurses, with separate treatment rooms for females and males. The Clinic is open from early morning until late in the evening and upon request for special occasions such as university sporting and other events. There is an emergency response vehicle for use if needed.

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Healthy Living Committee

To raise awareness of health and safety in a positive and engaging way, the Healthy Living Committee was established as a coordinating team that is open to all students and staff for the purposes of organizing and promoting health and safety initiatives. Major ongoing activities of the Healthy Living Committee include Health Days held on campus annually; annual blood donation drive again on campus, and the smoking awareness campaign involving visits to local schools.

Linking Healthy Living to the Curriculum

In addition to voluntary involvement by many students in various healthy living activities, both the Colleges of Engineering and Business have linked student learning and assessment to health and safety campaigns. For instance, students undertaking the Event Management Course within the College of Business are required to plan, organize, conduct, and review a major health and safety awareness event that is open to all students, staff, and their family members. Accordingly, even young children attend and therefore, the various activities must be both engaging and safe. This experience is a very practical means for students to learn first-hand the importance of carefully anticipating any type of health and safety considerations they might face and how to minimize risk of possible injury. Healthy living is an umbrella goal that includes diet, fitness, physical and emotional wellbeing, habits and a respect for others and the environment. Accordingly, the awareness activities organized by the Healthy Living Committee have been very diverse.

Healthy Living Committee Awards

Since its establishment in 2014, the Healthy Living Committee is proud of the high levels of recognition that it has received in relation to initiatives that promote healthier and safer workplace and general lifestyles.

Awareness Sessions

Students might experience medical emergency situations because of injuries, complications of chronic health conditions, or unexpected major illnesses during class. Such incidents might include but not limited to asthma attacks, bleeding, chocking, diabetic shocks, fainting, heart attack, seizures, and strokes. What is done by the student’s lecturer and his/her colleagues as soon as the emergency occurs is crucially important and might save person’s life. Oppositely, on the other hand if mishandled, it could endanger and jeopardize the student’s medical condition. Once annually, H&S delivers an awareness session to all faculty and lecturers on how to deal with a medical emergency that takes place in classrooms.

Culture Building Programs

H&S attempts to enhance the safety culture at AU using different culture building programs. These programs include but not limited to broadcast emails with a variety of safety topics, H&S magazines, and H&S events, having student workers and internship students.

Student workers and internship students get to perform safety inspections, safety audits, arrange for awareness sessions and learn how to follow-up on incidents and accidents ensuring all corrective actions are fulfilled.