Working conditions

Work-related health issues

The employer is obliged to provide safe and healthy working conditions. One of the occupational health and safety services is occupational medicine services. Preliminary medical examinations are subject to:

  1. people admitted to work,
  2. juvenile workers transferred to other jobs and other workers transferred to jobs where there are harmful to health or arduous conditions.

Persons are not subject to preliminary medical examinations:

  1. taken back to work for the same employer in the same position or in a position with the same working conditions within 30 days after the termination or expiry of the previous employment relationship with that employer,
  2. accepted for employment with another employer in a given position within 30 days of the termination or expiry of the previous employment relationship, if they present the employer with a current medical certificate stating that there are no contraindications to work in the working conditions described in the medical examination referral, and the employer states that these conditions correspond to the conditions present in the given position, with the exception of persons accepted to perform particularly hazardous work.

In addition, the employee is subject to mandatory periodic medical examinations. In the event of incapacity for work lasting more than 30 days due to illness, the employee is further subject to a medical check-up to determine his or her ability to work in his or her current position.

An occupational disease is considered to be a disease, included in the list of occupational diseases, if it can be established, beyond doubt or with a high degree of probability, through an assessment of the working conditions, that it was caused by factors harmful to health occurring in the working environment or in connection with the way the work is carried out, known as ‘occupational exposure’.

If an employee is found to have symptoms indicating the formation of an occupational disease, the employer is obliged, on the basis of a medical certificate, to transfer the employee to other work that does not expose him to the agent that caused the disease symptoms, within the time and for the period specified in the certificate. If the reassignment results in a reduction of remuneration, the employee shall be entitled to a compensatory allowance for a period not exceeding 6 months.

In addition to this, the employer shall, on the basis of a medical certificate, transfer to suitable work an employee who has become incapable of performing his/her previous work as a result of an accident at work or an occupational disease and has not been declared incapable of working. Also in this case, the employee is entitled to compensation for 6 months. April 2020. The Ministry of Health included Covid-19 in the list of occupational diseases. Coronavirus can be recognised as an occupational disease in dentists and doctors.