Työterveyshoitaja 4/16 References: www.stthl.fi ration for providing primary health services. It is aimed to reach all vul-nerable people. So, Public Health Institute provides primary health ser-vices to disadvantaged mobilize population such as seasonal workers and immigrants which allied to the minister of Health (regulation no: 29258) (Ministry of Health, Public Health Institute, 2015). Occupational health and safety is one of very important issue in Turkey. There are many different factors which cause occupational di-sease, accidents, injuries and death but the main reasons is unhealt-hy and unsafe work and work environment conditions. According to the last formal report in 2014, work related accidents have been inc-reased dramatically. At the same year, 221.366 workers had work acci-dents and %73 of them lost their life. Over 40% of the work accidents were seen in mine, metal and construction sector even though these sector just covers 18.7% employment (TurkStat), 2014). Compare to last years, people in Turkey are much aware of occupational health and safety requirements compare to last years but it has not been settled down in the system despite of many new regulations and legislations. It is clearly can be seen that, the rate of work accidents, mortality and injuries is extremely high even though these data just covers registered workers. According to informal report which also covers unregistered workers, 1 thousand 730 workers lost their life due work accidents in 2015 (Workers Health and Occupational Safety, 2016). Thereby, some new prevention and protection implements should be checked, acti-vated and occupational health services needs to be controlled by for-mal inspector regularly. Occupational health nurse (OHN) is an important member of oc-cupational health team which consisting of physician and occupational safety expert according the law. However, there is not any obligation for all companies to recruited OHNs. At the moment, it is estimated that there are about 4000 OHNs in Turkey. The duties of OHNs according to the law are; health promotion, health protection, disease preventi-on, health education, environmental surveillance and emergency care. Working time occupational health team’s member amends on num-ber of workers and workplace classification (Very dangerous, dangero-us and little dangerous). About 118 private and state nursing schools and departments affiliated with universities offers nursing degrees in Turkey (Onek and Esin, 2015). OHNs have the same basic education with all other nurses but OHN candidate has to have an extra educa-tion and training at Occupational Education Center which are priva-te. Then, they have to pass an exam to get the “other health professi-on” certificate (Ministr y of Labor and Security, 2013). This certificate is obligatory for founding the JHSUs but to get work at the WHSUs at moment. There is not master o doctoral program on OHN yet but it can be earned in public health nursing program that include occupa-tional health. Since 2015, Occupational Health and Safety Nursing les-son has been added to nursing curriculum at Istanbul Bilgi University (Education and Training System, Istanbul Bilgi University, 2016). Turki-sh Occupational Health Nursing Association (TOHNA) was founded in 2003. TOHNA has been a member of Federation of Occupational Health Nurses within the European Union (FOHNEU) with observer status since 2010 (FOHNEU, 2010). Ozlem Koseoglu Ornek MSc Istanbul Bilgi University 27
Tyoterveyshoitaja | 2016 No4
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