GSK confirms enhanced health and safety measures at Epping site
27 April 2020
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in South Africa, GSK has been committed to working with the government in the fight against this pandemic, with the health and wellbeing of our employees our number one priority. This means producing essential healthcare products for South Africa while keeping our own people safe.
Staff safety
GSK has global safety protocols which specifically relate to COVID-19, and have been implemented across our sites since the global pandemic started. These have constantly been reviewed in line with escalating risk assessments in each country. These protocols include the provision of additional PPE and the implementation of social distancing, deep cleaning, and employee screening.
Since the first case of COVID-19 was identified at our Epping site we have been working closely with the Western Cape Government Department of Health to ensure we are fully compliant. We ceased to manufacture in the affected area of the site immediately to allow for a deep clean of both this area and of the full production facility. We also initiated a programme of extensive proactive testing of our employees and have been supporting any colleagues who have tested positive.
PPE
GSK has a comprehensive supply of PPE for all our Cape Town colleagues. As a healthcare product manufacturer, GSK has always required our production teams to wear PPE. The wearing of masks and goggles and the use of specific sanitisers is normal practice at our sites, outside of additional COVID-19 regulations.
Following Government lockdown guidance issued on 25th March, GSK issued all its Epping staff (including those not directly involved with manufacture) with masks and hand sanitiser for them to use both at work and at home. This was in place prior to when our first case of COVID-19 was identified at Epping on 7th April.
Following a visit from the Department of Labour we are pleased to confirm that they have approved the factory can re-start production based on a re-formatted risk assessment and the implementation of a number of additional measures.
“We have implemented new stricter controls and ways of working at the site and are re-training all of our teams on the enhanced protocol they are now required to follow.” says Natasha Curnow, Human Resource Manager Cape Town.
We are changing our shift patterns and transport provision to avoid overlapping of shifts, ensuring a gap of at least one hour which enables us to implement additional sanitisation of transport, communal and production areas of the site including work stations and changing rooms.
“”We have implemented a two-hourly cleaning regime at the site and additional social distancing rules in our canteens and administrative spaces and introduced staggered breaks. We have added clear screens in the production areas to further separate our workforce. We are continuing to screen all employees on entry to the site and ensuring are wearing the required PPE.” continues Natasha.
Resumption of production
“The health of all our employees is, and has always been, our number one priority. Given the global and site specific health and safety measures in place at Epping, we are working on resuming production as soon as possible. We continue to work with our global specialists and our union representatives to ensure we are doing everything we can to safeguard our staff, and we will announce our plan in due course.” concludes Natasha
In the meantime, GSK continues to provide care packages for all its Epping staff. All packages include essential grocery supplies, with additional sanitiser and vitamins. All staff, including those in isolation, remain on full pay as usual.
Issued by Fathima Ebrahim, Senior Vice President:Client Experience, GSK, 27 April 2020
