A sight for sore eyes
One of your staff has informed you that he doesn’t need to wear safety glasses because his contact lenses provide him with adequate protection. Is this true and are there any safety issues with contact lenses?
No protection
Contact lenses are a safe and effective way to correct vision problems. Most people wear them because they prefer them to spectacles. However, they are nota replacement for eye protection. There’s no evidence to back up the employee’s claim, and in some cases, he may increase the risk to his eyes by wearing contact lenses in certain environments. If your risk assessments show that eye protection is required for certain tasks then all workers (including contact lens wearers) must wear it. As we stated in Year 4, issue 6, there are options available to those who need vision correction, including specially made prescription safety glasses. If they continue to wear lenses, they should be provided with standard eye protection to meet the requirements of your risk assessment.
Increasing the risk
There are certain situations where wearing contacts lenses can actually increase risks to the wearer, due to their nature. Examples of such environments are:
• exposure to chemical fumes and vapours
• exposure to chemical splashes
• work in very dusty atmospheres
• work in areas of intense heat
• work in very dry atmospheres
• exposure to extremes of infra-red rays
• exposure to caustic substances, particularly those stored under pressure.
Special arrangements
You should identify all contact lens wearers in your workplace and record this in their personnel file. It can also be advantageous to let your first aiders know, as they may need to remove the lenses in an emergency.
Display screen assessments
The Health and Safety Executive say that under the Display Screen Equipment Regulations 1992,the provision of contact lenses as special corrective appliances is not ruled out, but in practice, it’s unlikely that contact lenses would be satisfactory. Special corrective appliances are prescribed for the distance at which the screen is viewed. It follows that when the user changes to a different work activity or leaves their workstation for any other reason, they’ll need to remove their special corrective appliance to see clearly at other distances. This would be highly inconvenient with contact lenses.
Tip. Under these regulations you only have to pay for spectacles if special ones (prescribed for the distance at which the screen is normally viewed) are needed and normal ones cannot be used. This does not include contact lenses.
Dry eye symptoms
People suffering from dry eye do not make enough tears or produce tears of poor quality. The normal symptoms include red and sore eyes.
It is usually associated with the ageing process but occasionally some work activities can have an effect. Users of soft contact lenses can find any dry environment uncomfortable and the heat generated by VDUs for example, tends to make the atmosphere drier than in rooms without them. When staring at a screen the eyes tend to have a reduced blink rate. Wearers may find it helps to blink more often, or use tear substitute drops.
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