What counts as a work injury
An injury to employed persons, an occupational disease or other damage to health is considered a work injury if it occurred in connection with the performance of a work duty. The law explains this concept concretely: the damage is considered work-related if it occurred on the territory of an enterprise, institution or organization — the employer — regardless of its organizational-legal form, or outside its bounds in the performance of a work duty, and likewise in the case of travel to the workplace or return from work by transport allocated by the employer.
The practical significance of this definition is that the status of a work injury opens the way to determining the percentage of the degree of loss of professional work capacity, which in turn is connected with benefits and compensation. It is therefore decisive to establish precisely the circumstances of the damage: where it occurred — on the employer's territory, outside its bounds in the performance of a duty, or during travel in the employer's transport.
What documents are required at the first examination
A victim undergoing examination for the first time, or his or her representative, must submit to the establishment the following documents:
- the application of the administration of the employer, or of the professional union, where the work injury was received, or an application to the court (a court decision);
- an act of the accident or another document on the damage to health received through the work injury (a conclusion of a representative of the corresponding state supervision body);
- in the case of an occupational disease — the conclusion of a medical establishment.
This list of documents is complete: these provisions contain no rule requiring any further document. If the issuance of a document is refused, the remaining path is an application to the court, whose decision likewise counts as one of the grounds for the examination.
Professional work capacity and the main profession
Professional work capacity is a person's ability to perform work of a specified qualification and volume with appropriate quality. In determining the degree, it is decisive which profession is considered the main one: if the victim has several professions, the main profession, at his or her choice, is considered to be the one in which the victim worked at the time of the work injury, or the one in which he or she has long work experience, and likewise the profession in which the highest qualification was granted. For a student who received a work injury during production practice, the main profession is considered to be the one in which he or she is studying.
Certificates concerning the victim's work activity, working conditions and the character of the work performed are clarified by the establishment on the basis of information requested from the workplace and from the body exercising the corresponding sanitary supervision. This once again confirms that the determination of the degree is not a purely medical question — it also rests on working conditions.