Access to Health Care
Our objectives
Heineken believes it is important that our employees are in good health and safe when performing their duties. We therefore endeavour to prevent work-related illnesses and injuries, such as damage to the back caused by wrongly lifting loads or hearing impairment caused by protracted exposure to noise. We also aim to safeguard access to adequate basic health care. The consequence is that in countries where the government or private parties do not provide health care of a certain basic quality, we see a role in providing it ourselves to our employees and their direct dependents. Finally, it means that we want to ensure a safe working environment, for all those we employ either directly or indirectly, for example, the Beer Promoters (BPs).
| Situation 2003 | Situation 2007 |
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Our strategy
Within Group Human Resources, our Health Affairs department initiates and coordinates the activities we undertake in the area of occupational health and safety, particularly in markets where we provide basic health care. To this end we operate a network of clinics with our own doctors and nurses that provide first-line medical aid in sub-Saharan Africa. We have the facilities and know-how to diagnose and treat infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Our efforts in this area are also aimed at prevention of these diseases through simple measures such as giving our employees and their direct dependents adequate information and making available preventive items such as impregnated bednets against mosquitoes or condoms to protect against sexually transmitted diseases.
The promotion and sales of our brands in bars and restaurants by agency employed professional BPs is a common and accepted practice in several countries. Heineken is aware of the potential issues related to this way of selling and promoting beer in these countries, such as Cambodia. Heineken acknowledges its responsibility and strives for continuous improvement of the health and safety of BPs. Heineken issues guidelines in its breweries and for its sales organisations. These cover human resources issues, organisation of work and health and safety training, information and education.
Activities in 2007
We put emphasis on raising the awareness on the long-term health effects of working under unhealthy and unsafe conditions. The fact that such conditions could lead to work-related illnesses is not widely understood in all cultures. Therefore, our local doctors have been trained in early-stage diagnosis of these illnesses. In addition, a training tool for all local employees on work-related illnesses (such as hearing loss due to noise exposure and muscular or skeletal illnesses due to lifting weights) was introduced in sub-Saharan Africa.
As an ongoing activity, we continued our work on knowledge and skills improvement of our local health staff. Core activities in this respect are our bi-annual conferences (in 2007 this conference was also attended by our CEO), online health reporting, reviews of locations and continuous postgraduate medical training.
Also in 2007, an electronic patient file and stock control system called ‘doc4doc’ was introduced in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. This system ensures a more standardised format of health care provision and provides real-time reporting. One of the advantages is that it can also be used as a training tool for our local nursing staff.
We continued our HIV/Aids programme and specific attention was given to regular voluntary testing of employees and their dependants. As good practice, we believe that everyone should take a voluntary HIV test in areas with a relatively high HIV prevalence every two years as it is important that everyone knows his or her status. We try to prevent new cases by conducting prevention activities in operating companies in countries with a high infection rate. Nearly 400 seropositive patients are now benefiting from the company’s HIV/AIDS policy in sub-Saharan Africa.
In our previous report we indicated that we would perform an independent audit on our activities regarding BPs in Cambodia. This audit was executed by the international NGO, CARE International. If we compare the findings of their base line survey of October 2003, we see significant progress in many areas that are covered by our Beer Promoter Rules and Guidelines. However, we also see areas that require further attention.
We stated that we would actively encourage BPs to seek voluntary testing for HIV/AIDS and, if necessary, treatment which is offered free of charge in Cambodia. By openly discussing this with the BPs, we have lowered the threshold and tried to remove the taboo of HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, as we had indicated in our previous report, we have a written agreement with our local business partner covering issues such as working hours and overtime, duration, salary, benefits and allowance.
What we will do in 2008
- Place renewed emphasis on prevention of work related accidents in cooperation with Group Supply Chain
- Give more attention to health promotion activities. These activities will become more important, even in low-income countries, where non-infectious diseases are gaining in importance
- Host a best practice medical conference in the fall of 2008
- Roll out our ‘doc4doc’ system to more operating companies and add relevant additional tools to improve follow-up and monitoring of some chronic diseases
- Apply 100 per cent the selling beer safely code in Cambodia and continue to persuade other members of the industry, not subscribing to the programme, to do so
- Introduce the Enjoy Heineken Responsibly messaging in Khmer in commercial communication and website. In addition, we will further develop support material for BP educators.