2024-02-04 13:54:00
“If we are currently spared from the shortage of occupational doctors in the Alpes-Maritimes, in 5 or 10 years, we will be faced with it”fears Dr Claire Semeriva, who has been working for 6 years within the APST BTP (joint occupational health association for construction and public works).
“This specialty is the last to be chosen by medical students because it is not at all highlighted during studies. There is a lack of awareness of our missionsshe laments. When I entered medical school, I didn’t yet know what I was going to choose.”. It was during her time in oncology, as part of her internship, that she had a revelation.
“We also support the followingmath”
“After cancer, we survive, we heal and we return to work. But sometimes, often, it is no longer the same as before. There is a lack of knowledge of the followingmath. There are also many people who work with a pathology chronic and for whom the tasks are not suitable. We are here to help them”explains the 35-year-old practitioner.
As part of his missions, Dr Semeriva provides medical examinations for employees of the department’s construction and public works companies, every 5 years or every 2 years in the event of exposure to a risk or earlier if necessary. But also hiring visits, resumption following a work stoppage, temporary workers. “Visits that we try to prioritize, because we know that if they do not have their appointment on time, they can miss out on a mission.”
“The heart of our business, prevention”
The assistants do the preliminary visit: weight, height, urine, vision and hearing tests. “We may be required to perform a breath test, for employees exposed to dust for example, or an electrocardiogram in order to identify and trace professional exposures. We are independent of companies and subject to medical confidentiality,” continues the young occupational doctor.
“Since 2021, the law has introduced the mid-career visit, around age 45, in order to identify, early on, a possible risk of disintegration to immediately trigger support, she adds. Because the heart of our profession is the prevention of professional disintegration, that is to say keeping people in employment, ensuring that work does not alter their state of health.”
A real challenge in the construction professions, with the lengthening of careers and retirement at 64.
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