Centre For Occupational & Environmental Health (COEH)

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Centre For Occupational & Environmental Health

Location

Location    BL Taneja Block, Ground Floor, Lok Nayak Hospital, New Delhi - 110002

Introduction

Centre for Occupational & Environmental Health at Lok Nayak Hospital has been set up to address the growing concerns and hazards related to environment and health. With rising pollution at work and in community, the health professionals have an onerous responsibility to inform policy makers, educate stakeholders and undertake management of occupational and environmental illness. The centre is conducting a clinic for work related illness three days/week, and intends to develop the specialty of occupational and environmental medicine for the first time in India which is a thriving medical discipline in north America, Europe and Japan.

Centre has been acknowledged by International institutions and prestigious organizations including WHO & ILO. The centre has specially studied the problem of fire fighters and created a baseline health profile of industrial workers in Delhi. The Centre plans to undertake following tasks in coming years.

Education of physicians and other health care workers in bio-medical waste management: this is mandatory under the Biomedical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1998 as notified by the Govt. of India. This has become essential due to rising incidence of HIV, and hepatitis B and C infections among community creating risk to the health and safety of hospital workers. The Centre is already organizing training of physicians, nursing staff, technicians and other supportive staff on biomedical waste management.

Injury surveillance and prevention; a document of union ministry of health and World Bank expressed serious concern at rapidly rising injuries both due to traffic and other causes. The Centre has completed a study of 4000 injury records at Lok Nayak Hospital.

The centre is collaborating in its research activities with many national and international organizations. Besides, the Centre intends to carry out research, bring out a news bulletin on occupational and environmental health, undertake studies to generate urgently needed data on adverse impact of environmental pollution; start a fellowship course in occupational and environmental medicine; and undertake health assessment of industrial workers in Delhi as mandated by the Factories Act 1948 (Cooperation of Labour Department would be required for this).

To fulfill its objectives and attain the goals, the Centre functions through a Govt. society which gives more flexibility and autonomy to the centre to speedily execute proposed plan of action.

Staff

Dr. TK Joshi, MBBS, MS, MSc (Occupational Medicine), Project Director. He was formerly at London School of Hygiene as a visiting research fellow at the Centre of Occupational Health. He has been a national consultant to WHO and has been associated with several leading corporate organizations and trade unions. He has national and international experience and is an acknowledged expert in the field.

Dr. Jugal Kishore, MBBS, MD (Community Medicine, AIIMS, New Delhi), PG Cert. Health & family Welfare Management; Occupational Epidemiologist, has worked in many teaching institutions and hospitals. He is author of "Comprehensive review of Community Medicine" and "National health Programmes of India". He has many national and international research publications. He is one of the leading epidemiologists on the Environmental and Occupational subject.

Dr. Bharat B Sagar, MBBS, Environmental Officer. He has worked with public sector corporate giants like NTPC and Indian Airlines, and is involved in many research projects in occupational Health.

Activities

Clinical work:

  1. Centre runs three days a week clinic providing consultancy to those affected by occupational and environment illnesses;
  2. Management and detailed work up of complex cases of occupational illnesses is also undertaken.
  3. The centre provides consultancy to industry workers, community groups on work related issues, environmental health issues, and safety.


Training :

  1. Nodal agency on Biomedical waste Management and working with Australian experts under Aus-Aid programme to develop a national resource centre on biomedical waste management,
  2. Regular training on biomedical waste management;
  3. Orientation course on Occupational and Environmental Medicine. 


Research

Priority areas:

  1. Vehicular pollution,
  2. Health of Industrial and health care workers,
  3. Biomedical waste management and handling,
  4. Unemployment and health,
  5. Nutrition issues in workplace,
  6. Work-related Musculoskeletal disorders,
  7. Work place Injury prevention. and control
     

Published Work:

  1. Hospital Waste Management in India.
  2. International Journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine 1999
  3. Health & Unemployment in India. Archive of Occu. & Env. Medicine. 1999.
  4. Booklet of Biomedical Waste Management.
  5. Hospital Waste Management Policy 1999
  6. Comparing Health of five workers and Community in Delhi. International Journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine, 1998
     

Ongoing Projects

  1. Malignancies, including Bladder cancers study
  2. Musculoskeletal study
  3. Needle-stick injury in health care workers study
     

International Collaboration with :

  1.  Australian Government.
  2. University of California, San Francisco, USA
  3. Division of Occupational & Environmental Medicine,
  4. COEH, Berkeley University, USA
     

Contact Information

  • Tel.    011-23233519, 23239271 Extension 293, 9953717370
  • Email:  contactus[at]coeh[dot]org[dot]in
  • mailto:ivpss[dot]coeh[at]gmail[dot]com
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