The role of the occupational health nurse.

The paper highlights some of the findings from a stud» carried out b» the author and eo-workers in the County of Avon, England, in 1981. The objective was to develop a methodology for evaluating the occupational health nursing resources and activities within a defined geographical region, which could then be applied to other areas including Malaysia. Data was collected by means of a postal questionnaire. The response rate from the 108 nurses in the study population was 82.4 percent. The majority offulltime nursing units were employed in large organizations (with more than 1000 employees) uihile most of the part-time units were in smaller organizations. The main nursing activities appeared to be treatment, medical examinations and screening procedures. The implications arising from the findings are discussed in relation to the role of the occupational health nurse in Malaysian industry. There is a need to provide basic occupational health services to cover all industrial workers in Malaysia, particularly those in the smaller industries. In view of the great shortage of physician manpower, especially those qualified in occupational medicine, the fully-trained occupational health nurse app"ars to be the most appropriate paramedical personnel to provide primary health services in industry.