The Good Ol’ Days! Why Health and Safety makes our lives better.
Did you know there used to be hospitals solely for dealing with workplace accidents? This is before the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 HASAWA1974 became UK law.
Poplar Hospital for Accidents
This photo is of The Poplar Hospital for Accidents; the name sums up its purpose. The hospital’s patients were mainly workers from the docks and other industrial workplaces who were victims of serious workplace accidents. Serious Injuries and fatalities were common in the Eastened docks. Poor working conditions, high-risk nature of the jobs and a lack of safety legislation meant a high likelihood of serious accidents. If you had an accident and became disabled or died at work, there was little or no compensation from the company or the government, and your quality of life did not have a good outlook.
Historical working conditions
The Thames River used to be a crucial transportation route for goods into and out of London, but today, it looks completely different from its industrial past. When you look at Docklands now, it’s difficult to picture the river bustling with freight and cargo boats. The pollution made the water and area dirty, and was surrounded by large, noisy machinery that workers had to work with.
The hospital was built in the late 1800s at the peak of the Dockland’s export and import activities. Could you imagine if the government announced the opening of such a hospital nowadays? There would be public outrage, because accidents and maltreatment of people is no longer acceptable. Imagine the sight of such a hospital, the injuries and sufferings sustained by the dock workers within its walls.
If you had made it to the hospital alive, antibiotics were not available, and penicillin only came on to the market in the late 1920s. Not much was known about the spread of germs back then, and you would have been lucky to survive the hospital itself, which was a major source of infection.
Health and Safety misconceptions
Many people think that health and safety weren’t needed in the past. It took a long time for people to advocate its benefits and get the UK government to take action. Thankfully, Health and Safety legislation HASAWA 1974 has paved the way for a huge improvement in UK Working conditions.
Thanks goodness for the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
We know which times we’d rather work and live in, how about you? Do you want to get with the times? – then click here
Check out the full history of the Docklands working conditions here?
