The COVID-19 pandemic, and its profound impacts on the world of work, underscore just how important Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) is to all of us. The healthcare institutions are overburdened and the perpetual and escalating demand for medical services and human resources has pushed current resources to their edge. This indeed has resulted in cases of workplace safety getting ignored and the country has witnessed unfortunate series of accidents at the hospitals treating COVID-19 patients.

In India, there are over 1.9 million doctors and over 3.07 million registered nursing personnel. These health and social workers are at serious risk of acquiring COVID-19 during the course of their work. Moreover, those workers as well as essential staff in many other sectors have faced increased workloads, longer working hours and reduced rest periods. With the systems crossing their capacities, the risk of they facing the threat of violence and harassment at work is high, with consequences for both physical and mental well-being.

Amongst the many lessons learned from this crisis, is the need for countries to have a sound and resilient OSH system in place, certainly not limited to health sector but an OSH system protecting workers from all sectors is the need of this hour. A system which can build capacity to face future emergencies and protect workers