Chair and Managing Director’s Report

It seems rather fitting that this year’s annual report is brought to you online, for one of the accomplishments of 2003 was the redesign and launch of the OHCOW website.

Making the report available online and downloadable is one of the cost efficiencies that we decided upon last year. The savings are substantial. Last year the costs of writing designing and producing hard copies of our annual report were nearly $15,000. This year our costs were the time it took to compile the copy and to upload it on our site. Your thoughts on this new format would be appreciated.

The changes made to our web site and the uses it is now being put to represent just a fraction of the initiatives undertaken by the Provincial Office and the individual clinics. 

The mission of the Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers is to protect workers from occupational illnesses or injuries by identifying workplace exposures or hazards. We do this by:

·Providing medical review service for workers who may have work-related health problems
·Maintaining relationships with labour and management through joint health and safety
  committees
·Identifying and analyzing workplace hazards and exposures
·Providing an education service to make people aware of health and safety issues 
·Doing research to improve working conditions

You will see examples of all the above as you read through the highlights of clinic activities. 

2003 was an exciting time in the history of the organization. The Board and staff embarked on a strategic planning exercise that developed critical priorities on which the staff and Board could focus its energies. 2003 also saw the Board embark on a process of reviewing their governance structure which will allow them to develop policies and set priorities for the organization in a more structured and efficient way.

Considerable time and resources were spent last year developing and then beginning to implement a comprehensive internal and external communications plan.

Both the Board and the Executive Directors felt that internal communications should be the first priority in developing an overall communications plan. There was consensus that there was limited and inconsistent communication between management and staff; a general lack of information by each clinic about the other clinics and there was limited and intermittent communication/interaction between staff working in the same professional areas.

The redevelopment of the website and the publication of an internal newsletter were both viewed as an opportunity to promote healthier and more intensive internal communications.

There was also consensus that professional communications expertise would have to be brought into the organization to not only do the work on the internal plan but to begin planning the external plan.

As a result, a strategic communications officer was hired on contract to build and deliver a comprehensive communications plan.

Much was accomplished in 2003. In addition to the website and internal newsletter, new brochures were produced; a new display booth was created, and a communications plan document was formulated, agreed to by the Board and subsequently adopted by each of the clinics.

To further improve internal communications a very successful retreat was held in September allowing the board and staff to interact with each other, learn about clinic activities and discuss joint future initiatives.

In keeping with our responsibilities to maintain relationships with others in the health and safety community and because of our commitment to occupational disease OHCOW managed to get the Occupational Health and Safety Council (OHSCO) to develop a multi –year strategy to encompass a tool to identify occupational disease priorities, identify workers who are most at risk and increase early detection and prevention of occupational diseases.

We were actively engaged in discussions with the WSIB over their desire to integrate occupational health into primary care delivery. A number of meetings were held to discuss the complexities of doing this as well as the WSIB’s desire to create synergy between their prevention strategies and community partnerships that reach beyond the Ministry of Labour and the Health and Safety Associations in the Province.

We were also heavily involved in the planning of an international conference on asbestos that was held in Ottawa in September- a conference that ultimately passed a resolution calling for a ban on the production and export of asbestos.

Considerable time was spent last year amending the contract that OHCOW has with its physicians. A new independent contractor agreement which maintains the relationship between doctors and OHCOW as one of contract and not employer/employee has now been put in place.

Yet another highlight from last year was the Annual Meeting held in Hamilton at which Hassan Yussuff the CLC Secretary-Treasurer spoke eloquently of the need to build coalitions to move the health and safety agenda forward.

A new provincial government was installed last year and almost immediately the Labour Minister said that health and safety would be his number one priority. Commitments were made to ban smoking in all workplaces and public places and also to end the 60 hour work week, initiatives about which we were consulted on and made submissions. We made a presentation to the SARS Commission and began the process of building a relationship with Chris Bentley inviting him to tour our clinics and get a first hand impression of what we do. All in all a busy and satisfying year. 

Once again, many thanks to the staff in the Clinics and at Provincial Office for their commitment to delivering occupational health services to workers in the Province.


Lyle Hargrove                                                 Mary Cook
Chair of the Board                                                 Managing Director