The hiring medical examination is replaced by an information and prevention visit. This will be renewed every five years.
The start of the year has seen many legislative developments. One of them caused a stir: the abolition of the hiring medical examination. Since this 1e January, it is replaced by an “information and prevention visit”. With this measure, the Labor Law is accused of threatening occupational medicine, and the 5,500 practicing practitioners.
From two to five years
The anger of the unions is understandable. Not content with lifting the obligatory nature of the visit, the text of the law spaces the appointments. From now on, the aptitude certificate can be renewed every 5 years. As a reminder, in 2012, decrees had already relaxed the periodicity of the medical visit to two years. This new deadline will not allow “the detection of emerging risks and will not promote a relationship of trust between the worker and the occupational health service”, according to Force Ouvrière.
But the Labor Law attacks the very character of the visit. Nurses will now be able to carry it out. A decision supposed to facilitate access to these examinations but which worried up to the Council of the Order of Physicians. “The orientation towards a reduction in access to medical examinations for employees is not a response to the height of the challenges”, he declared in April 2016.
The supervised risk occupations
Several lines of the Application decree will still be able to reassure the defenders of workers at risk. Professionals exposed to lead, hyperbarism, or working at height, will have to pass a medical examination. The follow-up is reinforced. An appropriate response to the concerns expressed by unions and occupational physicians. They were concerned about the impact of infrequent monitoring on professions subject to particular risks.
In fact, the monitoring of this more vulnerable population is reinforced. Within two years of hiring, a second medical examination is required. It must be renewed every three years.
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