Anthropological Researches and Studies (Aug 2018)
CHANGES IN OCCUPATIONAL PROFILES AND OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE
Abstract
Objectives. Changes in the economy and occupational profile, implementation of new technologies and fragmentation of tasks and work processes justify the urgent needs in specialized occupational health and basic services. The national economy of the Republic of Moldova used to be based on the agricultural sector, two-thirds of the workers being employed in agriculture, while at present this country is undergoing changes in the occupational profile of the agricultural workers. As the total number of employees was reduced twice, the office workers, public workers, and others experienced a growing trend. Material and methods. Cross-descriptive, retrospective, sociological (questionnaire for hygienist doctors from territorial public health centers), and analytical-descriptive research of national occupational profile in the dynamics of 15 years was conducted. Approval of the ethics committee and informed respondent consent were obtained. There are presented the remote results of 61 hygienist doctors and 53 expert doctors who activated in the security and health services from the Republic of Moldova. Results. A demographic decline among the working age population was registered (from 63.78% in 2000 to 59.58% in 2015); there was also a decrease in the diagnosis of occupational diseases at early stages (0 cases 2014, 2015, 2016), which caused a 1.5-time increase of disabilities in the working population during the last years. We should also mention the 2.5 times rise of the percentage of employees working in harmful and inadequate sanitary conditions. The results of the inquiring the occupational health specialists justified the necessity: to categorize the place of work depending on the branch of the national economy; to elaborate tools to supervise and monitor the occupational health services; to strengthen medical statistical tools in occupational health care; to show the main causes of illness. Conclusions. Currently, the results of changes in the occupational profile are caused by: the absence of an interdepartmental strategic plan in the field of occupational health; the small number of businesses where health services are provided; lack of specialized indicators for monitoring occupational health; a low number of doctors specializing in occupational medicine; lack of motivation from the employer and the employee to establish the diagnosis of occupational disease; the phenomenon of high migration of the working-age population; the lack of a national electronic medical register for medical examination of the employees with occupational diseases.
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