All employees in contact with corona sufferers are tested – entire shifts included
The heart of this strategy: “If you are sick, you stay at home.” Everyone who has had contact with corona sufferers is tested, including entire shifts. “Our laboratory delivers results within eight hours,” says Bischof. “There is a lot of praise from our customers for this.” The speedy review is in great demand. The telephones of the occupational physicians keep ringing: sometimes it is the health authorities that keep track of contacts. Sometimes it is return travelers seeking advice or employees whose corona warning app has turned red. Health protection has already tested employees several thousand times, which is why the incidence is “much, much lower than outside”.
“I learned a lot this year,” says the doctor. It is worthwhile to be theoretically prepared for a crisis and to have a plan in the drawer. And a flexible team is worth its weight in gold: “The colleagues switch quickly, both mentally and physically. They postponed their usual tasks, organized a rental container for the swabs and put on protective clothing several times a day. “
Prevention should play a bigger role
Before he became a company doctor, Bischof worked for years as an anesthetist in a hospital and in a general practice. What drove him to change his job: “We usually treat too late. Prevention should play a much bigger role. ”Currenta health protection usually offers a comprehensive preventive care program for everyday work. Bishop: “Because of Corona, only the routine examinations required by law are currently being carried out.”
Fitness courses, weight loss, back training, psychologist talks: all of this has to wait. Unless something can be done online. For example the tips for colleagues who were suddenly beamed into the home office. You shouldn’t work at the kitchen table with your back bent. “We have come up with a lot of ideas for this, because home office is becoming a permanent trend,” says Bischof. The 60-year-old works himself – like his entire team – most of the time on site at the Chempark. By consistently adhering to the hygiene rules, he is confident of minimizing the risk: “I always wear mouth and nose protection, and if people are not considerate, I keep my distance.”
Take a walk in the forest in your free time, that’s all there is to it.
He also adheres to it privately. When someone at the supermarket checkout is already breathing impatiently on the back of his neck, he pushes the shopping trolley in between: “It makes no sense to follow the full protection concepts in a professional context and trample on them in private.”
The father of three children recommends maintaining contact with friends and family as much as possible for their mental health. And otherwise? “Do I get on my bike or go for a walk in the forest: that’s all there is to it.”
