Acceso usuarios
D. Sezgin, Melek Nihal Esin
In occupational health services, there are some vulnerable groups that might be effected by risks they encounter in their working life. They are seasonalagricultural workers, children, women, elderly workers,as well as disabled individuals. The rate of disabled workers is 14.3 per cent in Turkey. However, even though there are legislative regulations for employees who are disabled, studies show that those individuals face manyproblems such as unemployment, different payment policies, inappropriate physical environmental conditions, negative attitude of managers and different work tasks for their qualifications. In business, the creation of a safe working environment and additional measures are needed for disabled employees. Employers have the responsibility to include occupational health and safety practices for disabled employees. In the literature, it is shown that employers’ awareness level about the legislations for disabled employees was 72.6 per cent. In addition, there are limited preventive mechanisms for disabled people for working on equal terms with other employees and participating actively to working life.Occupational health team members initiate protection ofthe employees’ health and they serve as an agent to promote health by developing and improving workers’ abilities and opportunities. Risk assessment, appropriate job placement, physical environmental regulations, initialphysical examinations, periodic and return to work examinations, health education and counseling, follow-up and rehabilitation should be done by the occupational health team. Occupational physicians, occupational nursesand occupational safety specialists have important rolesin protecting and promoting disabled workers’ health.This review is aimed at giving information about legislative regulations and occupational health services in Turkey and discussing occupational health services that could be organized
