海外の中小企業衛生対策を語る : 第2回中小企業衛生問題研究会全国集会

Abstract

The author reported the outline of occupational health services to employees of small plants in U.S.A and in Europe, which he had recently inspected, at the 2nd general meeting of the Society for the Study of Occupational Health Problems of Small Plants in Osaka 1964. In both Europe and U.S.A., the health and medical services are lacking in small plants in general. Pilot experiments or programs of providing health and medical service to employees in small plants have been attempted in U.S.A. and in England. The patterns of the program are different according to the socio-economical and political conditions as well as the health and medical service system as of the state or the community. 1) Individual Program: It is the basic needs for the health service to employees in small as well as large plants to provide an individual health unit, e.g. medical equipment and medical personnael, in the plant. Otherwise, this program has frequently been miscarried mainly due to economical reason of the medical personnel. 2) Cooperative Program : The provision of a cooperative medical equipment or "Industrial Health Center" to a group of small plants is more favourable and effective to get the medical personnel and the well-equiped facilities. Slough Industrial Health Center and Harlow I.H.C. in England are worthy to be praised as well-arranged models of the cooperative health and medical service to small plants, which includes Central Clinic, mobile redressing service, health examination, inspection and research of work place, etc. These pilot experiments have shown that the assistance and the sponsor of the state, the community or the voluntary agencies should be the prerequisite to success of these programs, especially by means of a high initial investment. 3) Community Program: It is more effective and necessary to draw out the resources available in the community; hospitals, general physicians, nurses, institutes, volunteary agencies, especially official agencies. For instance, the cooperative activities of Bureau of Industrial Hygiene and the public health nurses of the health centers of Detroit Department of the Health are showing effective guidance and recommendations to improve the health services to employees in small plants. Besides, the part-time sevice of localgeneral physicians and their medical treatment in the offices should constitute the "backbone" of the health service to employees in small plants. On the other hand, criticisms to these programs, especially to so-called cooperative program for small plants, should not be overlooked, that is, these programs consist mainly of personal, rather clinical, medical services. For the health of employees the improvement of the unhealthy working conditions and the amelioration of the unhygienic environment in small plants should be the most essential needs, and the official inspection of factories and the recommendations to keep the legal hygienic standard should also not be neglected. Besides, the authour added a short description of the industrial health services in Czechoslovak, which have a tight correlation with the national socialized heath and medical service scheme, and of the initiative of Labour Union on Safety and Health in work places in the Socialist Republic.