Privacy and
POPIA notice.

Who we are

Work Fit Inc., trading as WorkFit Occupational Health Services, is the responsible party under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 for the lawful processing of your personal information.

Privacy and POPIA queries go to reception@workfit.co.za, or write to us at Mayo Medical Centre, Mayo 9, 1st Floor, Joseph Lister St, Constantia Kloof, Roodepoort, 1709.

What we collect

To carry out your fitness assessment and issue a certificate, we collect two kinds of information.

Ordinary information: your name, contact details, identity or passport number, nationality, and your employer.

Special personal information, as POPIA defines it:

• Medical and clinical history, diagnoses, prescriptions and consultation notes
• Results of every examination, investigation and specimen analysis, including blood, urine, breath, stool and hair
• Communicable disease status, including HIV, syphilis and tuberculosis, and your vaccination history
• Mental health, substance use, and any health condition relevant to the role being assessed

Your assessment includes a physical examination by a nurse and a medical practitioner, together with the clinical tests your employer requires.

Why we process it

• To conduct your fitness assessment and issue your medical certificate
• To communicate your fitness outcome, any restrictions, and relevant clinical findings to your employer or their duly appointed agents, including manning and crewing agents and HR service providers
• To comply with South African law and with the requirements of SAMSA, the ILO and IMO, the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency, and the medical standards of contracting cruise lines, shipping companies and offshore operators
• To recover fees and carry out ordinary administrative and accounting functions

Who we share it with

What we release is set by the consent you sign before your assessment. That form names who receives what, and it is worth reading before you sign rather than after.

Depending on your assessment and your employer, your information may be shared with:

• Your employer or their appointed agent, in accordance with your signed consent
• Third parties directly involved in completing your assessment: pathology laboratories, radiology providers and specialists
• Your employer's designated drug and alcohol testing representative, and where required the applicable regulatory authority, if substance screening forms part of your assessment
• Your treating doctor, where you ask us to or where your ongoing care requires it

Many cruise line consent forms authorise us to send the completed medical to the company's shoreside medical department, whose doctors review it before approving you. Others rely on the examining doctor to apply their standard. Your consent form tells you which applies to you.

HIV and syphilis results are shared only to the extent the applicable medical standard requires. Consent for that testing carries a separate legal status under South African law and is signed separately.

Records from other providers

If further records are needed to complete your assessment, it is your responsibility to obtain them and send them to results@workfit.co.za. Your assessment may be placed on hold, and no final fitness opinion issued, until everything required has been reviewed.

By signing the consent form you also authorise us to request those records directly from any health professional, institution, laboratory, hospital, insurer or public authority that has previously treated, tested or assessed you, where that is reasonably necessary to complete your assessment or clarify a finding.

Where it is kept, and for how long

Records are stored in the Bookem cloud-based practice management system, with industry-standard encryption in transit and at rest. Hard-copy records are kept in locked storage at the practice.

We retain records for the period required by the HPCSA, by applicable legislation, and by our professional indemnity insurer, whichever is longest. They are securely destroyed after that.

Sending information outside South Africa

Where your employer is based outside South Africa, or their appointed agent processes your information from another country, as is usual for international cruise lines, shipping companies and offshore operators, your information is transferred across borders on the basis that the recipient is bound by protections substantially similar to POPIA.

Your rights

• To be notified that we are collecting your information
• To access it, correct it, or ask us to delete it
• To object to processing on reasonable grounds
• To request a chaperone at any point during your examination, and to decline any part of it. Anything you decline is recorded on your file and may affect the outcome of your assessment
• To lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator

Withdrawing consent

You may withdraw your consent at any time by written notice to reception@workfit.co.za. Withdrawal does not affect the lawfulness of anything processed before it.

Being straight with you: if you withhold or withdraw consent, we may be unable to complete your assessment or issue a certificate, and you remain liable for costs already incurred.

Complaints

Raise it with us first, at reception@workfit.co.za. We would rather fix it than have you take it elsewhere unresolved.

You also have the right to complain directly to the Information Regulator of South Africa, using POPIA Form 5:

• Complaints: POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za
• Enquiries: enquiries@inforegulator.org.za
• Telephone: 010 023 5200, or toll free 0800 017 160
• Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg, 2191
• inforegulator.org.za

Changes to this notice

We update this notice when our practice, our systems or the law change. The version and date below tell you which one you are reading.