After Tham Luang... the Thorny Question of Health & Safety Rules in Thailand

[Yann55]

In the aftermath of the Tham Luang Cave Miracle Rescue (thank God I don't have to write 'Debacle' or 'Tragedy' here) the question of health & safety regulations in Thailand will no doubt be raised by many different people, especially on Thai Visa where the relevant Brigade is quite active and always ready to pounce on what they see as Thai 'negligence', 'carelessness', 'incompetence' etc.

I rarely argue with this particular Brigade. Not because I see the issue as irrelevant, quite the opposite, but because it can't be assessed in just a few phrases, and as we all know, in this Brave New Twitter-World, when posts are too long people tend to skip them. Which is why I’m opting for the ‘start a thread’ option.

The admonestations of the Health & Safety Regulations Brigade usually run thus : "If this were [my country], this situation would not have arisen because [such and such safety measures] would have made it impossible. Thai authorities should learn from us and stop being so criminally careless of their own people's health and safety. What they ought to do is ... [description of what Thailand should do if it was, errr... not Thailand]."

In the Tham Luang situation, suggestions to block the entrance of the cave entirely have already been made, and the fact that it was not blocked on 23 June will be deemed 'criminal'.

The H&SR Brigade never doubts for one second that our Western Health and Safety Measures are pertinent, good, and that they reflect nothing but humane intentions. Hum... okay, maybe... but for one thing, it is quite clear to me that our H&S rules are fueled, first and foremost, by two factors, which are interconnected, and have very little - if anything - to do with ethics and human concern :

1/ the massively insured context the West lives in, and

2/ the judiciary mentality that has become so prevalent in our societies, where problems are automatically seen in terms of 'responsibility' and 'liability' (see point 1). We want the 'guys who are responsible for this' to be condemned and we want victims to be 'compensated'.

Surprise surprise... money, rather than high moral standards, seems to be the prevalent force in the matter. Now of course one could say : "who cares if the reasons are fishy ? If the right things are done for the wrong reasons, then reasons don't matter".

Okay... how right, then, are these rules and regulations ? How good are they ? How do they really help people to live a better life, have better and smoother interaction with their fellow human beings, be prepared to the inherent difficulties of life, and deal with them when they happen ?

Personally my answers to these 4 questions are :

1/ Do our H&S rules help people to live a better life ?

In some cases, I suppose they do, but mostly they tend to 'file our teeth', lessen our capacity for initiative, make us shy away from all forms of danger (thus impairing our learning process in many instances) without assessing how real it is and whether or not it would be worth braving it. All the warning signs and public safety precautions make us so used to being monitored that when we do cross the line and hurt ourselves, our first reaction is not introspection but searching who to blame for this intolerable 'lack of safety'. I can't help but laugh when I so often read posts on Thai Visa about Thais 'not being able to face the music' and systematically deflecting the blame because frankly I think that in this field, the West is #1.

2/ Do our H&S rules help us have better and smoother interaction with our fellow human beings ?

For one thing, they increase the focus on the individual, not the group or the team, or society at large. When an individual becomes a 'victim' and the blaming process starts, there is no such thing as a friend, neighbour or even relative : everybody's ass can be sued and the lawyers around the victim make sure he/she doesn't get all human and soppy. It's OK to sue your cousin if you broke your leg while climbing the ladder to his attic, because your cousin is insured anyway, so it's 'nothing personal'... says the lawyer. Sorry but... not true. It is personal, it is damaging to the way we interact with others and how we feel about them. It encourages all kind of selfish tendencies in us and contributes to creating a 'me-world' as opposed to an 'us-world'.

3/ Do our H&S rules help us be prepared for the difficulties of life ?

No, of course not, primarily because it's not their concern. H&S rules are there for when the problems occur, they are in no way 'educational'. They do, however, become part and parcel of our DNA, in a sneaky way, mostly by depleting our sense of personal responsibility, creating a blame-culture, and assuming that problems must be dealt with by institutions rather than humans in the community. I am impressed, honestly, when I see how the Western younger generations give up so easily in the face of difficulties, and I am deeply convinced that it is largely because they've been brought up in over-protective societies. H&S rules are a major part of this over-protective package.

4/ Do our H&S rules help us deal with Health and Safety problems ?

Paradoxically, no, they most often don't. Just as an example, imagine if Tham Luang Cave was somewhere in Texas. Now that the kids are out, each of them would have a team of buzzing lawyers around him, who'd be busy sueing the local authorities and God knows who else, who themselves would be busy sueing the coach (who, as a coach, would probably be covered by some kind of personal insurance). After a lot of time and legal procedure, money would change hands, in some cases huge sums of money for which these kids and their families are totally unprepared, thus wreaking havoc in their lives. The coach could end up in prison, meaning his life would be ruined and the kids would know no ends of guilt about him, knowing that he not only did nothing wrong but played a major part in saving their lives. Problem solved ? No... just more problems created.

 

                                                                                                   ***

I was brought up in the Alps, which are high and dangerous mountains. My Dad was a mountain guide. An extremely dangerous job, where people would litterally put their lives in his hands. He retired early  - around the age of 50, which is common in this kind of activity - and I often heard him say, as far back as 30 years ago, that he would never have chosen this job in the present context, where clients sue the guide when the smallest problem arises (some nationalities being more lawyer-prone than others). Nowadays guides are heavily insured, like doctors, and for the same reason. How normal is that ? How healthy ? How does it create a better society ?

When did Western people begin to forget that, as dear old Confucius used to say, 'sh*t happens' ? The answer to that one is easy : when insurance companies and lawyers realised they could become the alchemists of the 20th century by turning sh*t into gold. In the process, they totally jeopardized human beings and societies, but who cares when there's so much buck to be made ?

This is one of the numerous fields where we Westerners have actually a lot to learn from Asian cultures and not the other way round. Look at the way these Thai families reacted about the coach. That says it all. Are Westerners impressed with their wisdom ? Some, maybe, but so many are pointing fingers and asking : “why don’t you do like us ? Why don’t you become like us?”.

In my little mountain village, the local people were very much like these Thai families. They were wise, patient, tolerant, community-oriented, courageous and level-headed. They were no saints, sure, but their intelligence, based on common sense, observation and experience, was truly impressive. My parents, who were the only city-born people in the village and were immediately adopted simply because they were hard-working individuals, never missed an occasion to say how grateful they felt towards these villagers (whom city people would so readily refer to as ‘simple’) and how much they learned from them, at all levels, including philosophical, psychological and social.

It wasn’t an Eldorado, nor a utopian society, but definitely one that walked on its feet, rather than its head.

 

 

 

[worgeordie]

Health and safety in Thailand ......?

Health and safety in the West ,especially the U.K. is at the other

end of the spectrum, where even egg & spoon ,3 legged races

are banned in some areas.

regards worgeordie

[Kwasaki]

ZZZ. 

[Kwasaki]

ZZZ. 

[Rhys]

.. why did the kids did not heed the signs.. most likely they did not want to read it...

[grollies]

43 minutes ago, worgeordie said:

Health and safety in Thailand ......?

Health and safety in the West ,especially the U.K. is at the other

end of the spectrum, where even egg & spoon ,3 legged races

are banned in some areas.

regards worgeordie

Conkers

[grollies]

BTW, OP, great post, well thought out and presented.

[grollies]

10 minutes ago, Rhys said:

.. why did the kids did not heed the signs.. most likely they did not want to read it...

Because it was June when they went in and the sign says 'July to November'

 

Mind you it was July when they came out.

[Lamkyong]

posts are too long people tend to skip them. 

[grollies]

13 minutes ago, Lamkyong said:

posts are too long people tend to skip them. 

 

[Yann55]

1 hour ago, Lamkyong said:

posts are too long people tend to skip them. 

 

The useless negativity that emerges constantly on this Forum will never cease to amaze me...

 

What I wrote here is an article, not a post. If you think it's too long, then how about you simply don't read it and move on, back to your video games, Twitter messages or Japanese mangas, whichever suits your brain best ?

 

Why the urge to spew your bile at another person's effort to express an opinion on a complicated subject simply because you can't summon enough attention to read more than 10 lines ?

 

Average maturity on this Forum : 12-14 years old. Pathetic.

 

 

[grollies]

5 minutes ago, Yann55 said:

 

Average maturity on this Forum : 12-14 years old. Pathetic.

You can tell that by the ubiquitous use of emoticons.

[Kwasaki]

14 hours ago, grollies said:

You can tell that by the ubiquitous use of emoticons.

? ? ? ? ?. ?

[fantom]

Excellent  article, thankyou for putting it together so clearly.

My background in Occupational Health led me to increasing levels of astonishment over the years when returning to Australia from Thailand on holidays here. My  awareness was rekindled time and again at how stifling over all sectors the OH&S industry in Australia had become. My later consultancy work countering much of this idiocy in Australia means a pleasant retirement here.

 

Please keep writing.

[doodle]

A lot of good points made in this post. It's true that the health and safety culture has become rampant in Western society. 'Nanny State' springs to mind in regard to the UK's approach to it. Not wishing to start a Brexit debate here, much of this has sprung from the EU's love of rules and regulations. Mind you, the Grenfell Tower disaster shows that we still don't always get it right.

 

Asian, and particularly Thai, culture seems to suggest that people rather than the State are responsible for their own health and safety. This is most noticeable on the roads, another favourite TV topic. I should imagine any Thai drivers visiting almost any Western city experience some sort of culture shock. Of course, the same can be said for us visiting Bangkok but for different reasons.

 

We must not forget that one of the reasons we all love to live or visit here is the different culture compared to the West. Too much 'improvement' will take that away forever. We can only hope for some sort of compromise when the Thais do finally get round to doing something about their health and safety issues.

[NoshowJones]

On 7/11/2018 at 5:45 PM, Rhys said:

.. why did the kids did not heed the signs.. most likely they did not want to read it...

We haven't to my knowledge, heard what really happened regarding the notice that said it was safe for another seven days, was it there? Was it put up after the boys and their coach went in the cave? Personally, I don't believe that was the case. Did the boys go in at first without the coaches knowledge, and he went in after them?

Will we ever get the answer to these questions?

[NoshowJones]

On 7/11/2018 at 7:11 PM, Lamkyong said:

posts are too long people tend to skip them. 

Yes, like the OP in this thread, this is not a complaint, if a long post or answer is interesting, people will read it right through.

[NoshowJones]

On 7/12/2018 at 11:21 AM, Kwasaki said:

? ? ? ? ?. ?

Be careful, Transam is watching.

[Belzybob]

In the absence of good old fashioned wars, how else are we going to control the population? HSE, bah humbug.