The Occupational Medicine Specialists has dual responsibilities to the patient and their employer. The role is therefore different to every other branch of medicine where the physician’s primary responsibility is to the patient.
My services are to:
- Visit the workplace and advise on the provision of safe and healthy conditions by informed scientific assessment of the physical and psychological aspects of the working environment
- Promote compliance with relevant health and safety legislation
- Help develop policies, practices and cultures that promote and maintain the physical, mental and social wellbeing of all workers
- Supervise the workplace conditions as well as the implementation of the safety & health precautions, by performing occupational health audits and report the findings to the employer upon the identification of any health issue
- Assess the fitness of workers for specific tasks, ensuring a satisfactory fit between person and job, recommending suitable adjustments to enable a person to undertake the work they have been selected to perform safely and effectively, considering any health issues or disabilities they may have
- Monitor the health of workers who are potentially exposed to hazards at work through health surveillance programs (Medical Examinations: cardiogram, spirometry, otoscopy, eye examination (visiotest), and other special medical examinations according to the needs of each company)
- Analyze data from surveillance programs using epidemiological methods to identify trends in worker health and recommend any remedial measures necessary to improve worker health
- Perform medical examination of employees when they are hired, as well as a periodical medical examination when an employee moves to a different position
- Advise employees and employers regarding work-related health issues
- Assess potential cases of occupational injuries and illness; investigating, managing and reporting individual cases appropriately and establishing if this is a single case or if there is wider incidence
- Manage immunization programs for workplace biological hazards and for business travelers
- Case manage workers who are on sick leave, working with other health professionals to ensure the earliest return of functional capacity and return to work
- Recommend suitable alternate work in circumstances where a worker cannot perform their normal job, either temporarily or on a permanent basis because of a health problem
- Perform First Aid training and also organize the First Aid Teams within the workplace
- Perform Informative seminars about food safety, hygiene and exercise and also on smoking and its consequences and smoking cease techniques
- Provide advises on required precautions or remedial actions that need to be taken, in order to achieve a healthy workplace