Roles, Rights, and Responsibilities

Community physicians, as employers, have a legal responsibility to ensure the health and safety of all staff in the clinic. This includes resolving any workplace conditions that are hazardous to the health or safety of the workers.

Employers must also ensure workers:

• Are aware of all known or reasonably foreseeable health and safety hazards to which they are likely to be exposed by their work.
• Comply with OHS provisions, regulations, and any applicable orders.
• Are aware of their rights and duties under the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) provisions and regulations.

Employers must also establish workplace health and safety policies and programs in accordance with regulations by:

• Providing and maintaining, in good condition: protective equipment, devices, and clothing as required by regulation, and ensuring these are used by workers.
• Providing workers with the information, instruction, training, and supervision necessary to ensure the health and safety of those workers in carrying out their duties, and to ensure the health and safety of other workers at the clinic.
• Making a copy of the Workers Compensation Act (WCA) and the OHS Regulation readily available for review by  staff and, at each workplace where people are regularly employed, post and keep a notice posted advising where the copy is available for review.
• Consulting and cooperating with the joint occupational health and safety committee or the worker health and safety representative.
• Cooperating with the WorkSafeBC Board, safety officers of the Board, and any other person carrying out a duty under the OHS provisions or the regulations.

Supervisors, including physicians and office managers, must ensure the health and safety of all staff under their direct supervision.

This includes:

• Being knowledgeable about the OHS provisions and those regulations applicable to the work being supervised.
• Complying with the OHS provisions, the regulations, and any applicable WorkSafeBC orders.

Supervisors must ensure staff:

• Are aware of all known or reasonably foreseeable health or safety hazards in the area where they work.
• Comply with the OHS provisions, the regulations, and any applicable orders.
• Consult and cooperate with the joint occupational health and safety committee or the worker health and safety representative for the workplace
• Cooperate with the WorkSafeBC Board, safety officers of the Board, and any other person carrying out a duty under the OHS provisions or the regulations.

Workers including medical office assistants, nurses, and Primary Care Network staff (such as contracted allied health professionals) must:

• Take reasonable care to protect their own health and safety, and the health and safety of other people who may be affected by their acts or omissions at work.
• Comply with the OHS provisions, the regulations, and any applicable WorkSafeBC orders.
• Carry out their work in accordance with established safe work procedures as required by the OHS provisions and the regulations.
• Use or wear protective equipment, devices, and clothing as required.
• Not engage in horseplay or similar conduct that may endanger the worker or any other person.
• Ensure that their ability to work without risk to their own health or safety, or to the health or safety of any other person, is not impaired by alcohol, drugs, or other causes.
• Cooperate with the joint occupational health and safety committee or the worker health and safety representative, where applicable, for the clinic.
• Cooperate with the WorkSafeBC Board, safety officers of the Board, and any other person carrying out a duty under the OHS provisions or the regulations.
• Report to the supervisor or employer:
  • Any contravention of the OHS provisions, the regulations, or an applicable order of which the worker is aware.
  • The absence of or defect in any protective equipment, device or clothing, or the existence of any other hazard that the worker considers is likely to endanger them or any other person.

In British Columbia, all workers, including community physicians, medical office assistants, nurses, and allied health workers, are entitled to three fundamental rights under occupational health and safety regulations:

• The right to refuse unsafe work.
• The right to be informed about health and safety matters.
• The right to participate in health and safety activities in the workplace.

When multiple employers share a workplace, the clinic owner is considered the prime contractor and is responsible for coordinating health and safety, unless otherwise stated in a written agreement with one of the employers/contractors in the workplace. The clinic owner is the person or corporation who owns or rents the workspace.

The prime contractor of a multiple-employer workplace must:

• Coordinate the activities of employers, workers, and other persons at the workplace related to occupational health and safety.
• Establish and maintain, as far as reasonably practicable, a system or process to ensure compliance with the Workers Compensation Act(OHSR). The system may include all the health and safety topics covered on the CPHS web portal.
• Be provided with the name of the person each employer has designated to supervise their own workers at the workplace.

What does that really mean? It means the prime contractor is responsible for:

• Having systems in place to ensure two-way communication with other employers in the workplace (subcontractors) by the following:
  • Receiving from each employer in the workplace the names of the qualified persons designated to (1) supervise their workers and (2) be responsible for their own health and safety activities.
  • Attending meetings with subcontractors to coordinate safety and ensure compliance with the Workers (OHSR).
  • Ensuring subcontractors notify the prime contractor in advance of any undertaking likely to create a hazard for a worker of another subcontractor.
  • Communicating any known hazards to all affected subcontractors and workers.

• Coordination between the different employers:
  • Identifying and setting expectations for each subcontractor’s safety contact.
  • Coordinating all safety-related activities, from orientations to monthly health and safety meetings.

• Establish an emergency response plan and communicate it to all workers.
• Maintain accurate records:
  • Keeping accurate records and notes is a must.
  • Documentation demonstrating the coordination of safety-related activities and a system to ensure compliance with WCA and OHSR, such as orientation records, meeting minutes, formal risk assessments, inspection records, first aid records, incident investigation reports, and other training records.