Putting it all together
After six years of anticipation and 18 months of aggressive campaigning the time was upon us to host the SCOHN/SASOHN ICOH 2009 pre-conference workshop. The blood, sweat and tears were worth it as all the hard work culminated in a very successful event. There were 97 delegates in total of whom only 41 were paying delegates. A phenomenal effort at seeking sponsorship meant that more than 62% of the delegates were totally sponsored, an effort to be proud of. In addition SASOHN was able to provide fully sponsored transport from the Cape Town International Conference Centre to the venue and back which was a great help to the international delegates and to some of our local delegates. The international delegates from Brazil, North America, Europe and Asia were impressed by the event and could not stop praising SASOHN for the professional workshop and cocktail function they had arranged.

The Academic Programme

The academic programme consisted of 11 speakers; eight were international speakers and three South African delegates. A variety of papers were presented on varied topics. Julie Staun, President of FOHNEU presented research findings from a project conducted within the European Union investigating the status of the OHN in the European Union states.

For South African OHNPs it was interesting to see just how similar our problems and concerns are in terms of professional practice. Marjatta Peurala, the out going SCOHN President presented discussed quality management in Finnish OH services. Susan Randolph from the USA presented a research project that had compared the competencies between learners on distance based programmes compared to On-Campus programmes. Vicky Majors, Angela Butkovic, Theresa Bosman and Tirsa Barnard were the South African delegates and their respective topics were; exposure to organophosphates and the aetiology of depression, quality of audiometry and medical surveillance of workers exposed to heat.

Other international speakers included B Tarvainen, Finland; Kazuko Nashida, Japan, Dr Pimpan, Thailand and Maria Rautio, Finland. My personal highlight was the presentation by Bonnie Rogers who spoke on research in nursing. Bonnie is the author of a widely used reference book in teaching circles and in addition was a nominee for Vice Presidency of ICOH. Again we need to be proud of the South African delegates, two of whom were presenting papers for the first time at this level.

Partying Africa Style

The cocktail function was a tremendous success with no “boxed” wine but only wine from the finest Cape estates and the music “with dancing lessons” being provided by the Hout Bay Music project.

It is now an expectation that all SASOHN social functions are accompanied by the spontaneous eruption on the dance floor and this was no exception. International delegates were taught traditional African dance moves and South African delegates were taught how to Samba. Delegates had the opportunity to meet with their international peers and share experiences and concerns with regard to occupational health nursing. It was also an opportunity for us to teach the international delegates something about South African wine which went down very well. A thank you to Margot Pretorius, Theresa Bosman, Cheryl Wilson, Christine Van Wyk and the rest of the Western Cape team for serving as our liaisons and making helpers available on the day.

Each delegate received a textbook from the Department of Minerals and Energy and a CD with all the photographs that were taken on the day. Eight exhibitors displayed their products and were also very complimentary of the organisation of the event as well as the value for money they received. My only regret is that more South African OHNPs did not make use of this opportunity. This was truly a rare opportunity to meet with our international peers and learn more about OHNP globally. The event and the success is most definitely as a result of the overwhelming sponsorship that was received from all our sponsors. A truly South African thank to each of them.

ICOH 2009

The ICOH conference was attended by approximately 1400 delegates, the majority of whom were from overseas. The conference ran from Sunday 22 March to Friday 27 March 2009. The academic content of the conference was a great success. Keynote address were particularly relevant and the information presented current and applicable.

There were excellent presentations from all delegates and it was encouraging to see a fair number of South African presentations. Poster presentations from South African nurses were to be seen. I am aware for presentations by Kobie Oosthuizen and Angel Butkovic et al from OCSA, Tirsa Barnard and Theresa Bosman from Consol, Louwna Pretorius from Corobrik and Myself. To the others I was not aware of my apologies. Oral presentations were made by numerous SASOHN members including; Rene Jordaan, Louwna Pretorius and Karen Michell. Five days of choosing which presentations to attend, of creatively managing where you would be and when, and managing to squeeze it all in – an exhilarating experience. The term occupational indigestion was

coined at this event. There was just so much new information it was hard to absorb it all in such a short time. That is where all the literature that was on hand became invaluable. This gave the delegate the opportunity to take it away and digest at your own pace. All delegates at the conference were given the translated works of Bernardo Ramazzini. Congratulations from SASOHN to Mary and Claudina and their team for en excellent programme- I know the hours that went into that and we thank you for enriching our experiences.

Voting of new portfolios
This was a voting conference and the newly elected president is Dr Kogi. It is also a great achievement for nurses to have Bonnie Rogers an OHNP as one of the vice-presidents. A full list of all the new ICOH board members is available on the ICOH website. A word of congratulations is also extended to Dr Mary Ross who has been elected as an ICOH Board member and to Louwna Pretorius who was voted as the SCOHN chair.
Future Events
The 30th congress, ICOH2012 will be in Monterrey, Mexico. Dublin, Melbourne and Seoul actively lobbied the delegates for the 2015 congress which was eventually awarded to Seoul, Korea.

Thanks
My personal thanks are extended to SASOHN who sponsored me to attend the event. This was for me an exhilarating experience and one which I look forward to every three years. It is a rare opportunity that makes me realize that despite the amount of work we still have to do in occupational health nursing we are on the right track and are up their with our international peers.

See you all in Monterrey in 2012!!!

Karen Michell
SASOHN Educational Representative