Interview With A Sample Of Occupational Health Physicians About Their Role During The Covid-19 Pandemic

Introduction. The COVID-19 pandemic legislation integrated the legislation already present in the workplace. The presence of the Occupational Health Physician (OHP) was essential in the company. The OHP, according to the D. Lgs. No 81/2008, is a physician with professional qualifications and requirements, who collaborates in the risk assessment and carries out health surveillance, to protect the health and safety of workers. During the pandemic his work has been incessant and has led to professional enrichment. Reflecting on his actions is essential to create innovative paths. Material and method. A semi-structured interview to a sample of OHP operating in the Lazio region was administered through videoconference system. All have received and have conseted the information on the processing of data, as established by the privacy legislation. The interview, lasting about 1 hour according to the focused conversation method. The data were analyzed using statistical text analysis software. Results and Conclusion. The interviews revealed a growth in both inter-professional (colleagues) and intra-professional (safety officers, employer, workers) relationship. In terms of increasing skills and knowledge, the need to update and keep employers updated was a positive element. On the psychological level, job satisfaction, the perception of one's role, awareness of new job requests and the resources activated was detected. In terms of utility and sense of accomplishment, the pandemic has clearly brought out the importance of prevention aspects, beyond current legislation and established routines. This study is still in progress.

Our neonatal unit in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

INTRODUCTION During the global COVID-19 pandemic, our hospital, a HUB and the Tertiary Level Hospital of the whole Province, has been declared COVID CENTER of our city, Reggio Calabria, and of the surrounding region. In our Neonatal Unit, we have been involved in the screening and the management of all COVID-19 positive mothers and newborns. Our first action was to write an organisational model for all the COVID- 19 positive pregnant ladies, the birth of their babies and the management of the first days after birth. METHODS We immediately aligned ourselves with the guidelines of the Italian Society of Neonatology in order to support the COVID-19 mothers, to provide the skin-to-skin practice and the rooming-in, already done traditionally in our Department for all the healthy babies. Furthermore, our Unit is part of the COVID-SIN Italian Register and contributes to the collection and update of the COVID-19 mother/baby information. RESULTS We have witnessed since the start of the pandemic: -15 Infants born from mothers with previous COVID-19 infection (11 males;4 females), of which 5 were small for gestational age (SGA);-33 Infants born from a COVID-19 positive mother (18 males;15 females), of which 3 were premature babies, 5 were SGA and 1 was large for gestational age;-1 COVID positive infant;-1 COVID positive newborn. The babies born from COVID-19 positive mothers were able to practice the skin to skin at birth and then stayed in rooming-in until their discharge. No babies developed symptoms or signs of COVID-19 infection and all their nasal swabs were negative. Only 4 of the 33 infants were hospitalized in our Special Care Unit because of maternal problems (COVID-19 symptoms) and two in our NICU for prematurity. All infants benefited from exclusive breastfeeding, except for the four infants admitted to the ward who were fed with expressed breastmilk and adapted formula. Furthermore, we assisted a COVID-19 positive infant (36 days). He came to our observation from home, presenting with fever and rhinorrhea, but in good clinical conditions, who self recovered. The only COVID-19 positive newborn also arrived to our Unit from home, at 13 days of life, due to probable inter-family infection. The baby was born from a negative COVID-19 mother, who was also positivized by inter-family contacts. He developed fever but no other symptoms and his general conditions remained good during hospitalization. CONCLUSIONS The COVID-19 pandemic did not find us unprepared and with many difficulties, we managed to guarantee the mother-child relationship as recommended by the major scientific societies. Despite the logistic and organisational problem, such as special and isolated rooms for mothers and babies, our aim has always been to support and guarantee the best possible care for the infants, the maintenance of the breastfeeding and the rooming-in practice.