Occupational health services in manufacturing industries in Nigeria

The provision of adequate health care facilities to cater for the health of workers is an important consideration in the management of manufacturing industries, since productivity is dependent on the health status of the workers. There are very few studies evaluating the health care provision in Nigerian industries. This study elucidates such health care services in Edo and Delta States of Nigeria. One hundred and thirty-five (56%) of the 241 registered manufacturing industries in Edo and Delta States of Nigeria were randomly selected and investigated. The response rate was 91.1% and the result showed that the medical staff comprised 2.5% of the total workforce, with the large scale industries contributing the highest proportion of these. Four point five per cent of the medical staff had formal training in occupational health and 15.6% of them visited the factory shop floor. The doctor:staff ratio in the medium and large scale industries were 1:819 and 1:618 respectively. It was found that all the industries used the health care facilities provided by the government, there were no clinics in all the small scale industries and group practice was not used by any of the industries studied. Pre-employment medical examinations were carried out in each of the groups of industries (100%, 39.4% and 5%) respectively, as were periodic medical examinations during employment, although to a lesser extent (100%, 13.2%, 0%) for the large, medium and small scale industries respectively. These finding suggest the availability of a reasonable standard of health care provision for large scale industries and somewhat less availability for medium and small scale industries. Health education of both the employers of labour, and the employees and the enforcement of existing laws are needed to improve the existing standard of occupational health services.