Abstract
The Occupational Safety and Health Framework Directive 89/391 EEC marked some fundamental improvements in occupational safety and health, specifying minimum obligations as regards health and safety throughout the European Union. Globalization, demographic shifts, migration and new technologies have produced far-reaching changes in the world of work and new challenges for the health and safety of workers.
The main focus of occupational health is possible to express in three different objectives: the maintenance and promotion of workers' health and working capacity, improvement of working environment and work to become conducive to safety and health, and development of work organizations and working cultures in a direction which supports health and safety at work and in doing so also promotes a positive social climate and smooth operation and may enhance productivity in the undertakings. Modern occupational health covers a broad spectrum of different health protective and promotional services and occupational medicine as a speciality of physicians dealing with the prevention, diagnostics, treatment, and medicolegal aspects of diseases caused or exacerbated by working conditions is still one of the major disciplines of occupational health.
Although there is limited number of occupational physicians, they still have an essential and important role in the tracing and medical assessment of work-related and occupational diseases and cannot be easily replaced by other medical specialists. Unfortunately, the current social situation does not indicate the necessary support for occupational medicine and there is a real risk of the extinction of this specialization.