249 Conference Release from the Polish National Conference under the Honorary Patronage of the Minister of Health on “Occupational Safety for Nurses and Midwives”, September 10-11, 2018, Warsaw, Poland

The National Council of Nurses and Midwives organized the Polish National Conference under the Honorary Patronage of the Minister ofHealth on “Occupational Safety for Nurses and Midwives,” held in Warsaw on September 10 –11, 2018. The main issues that were addressed concerned the following: Mental and health disorders in shift work; Aggression towards nurses and midwives; The effect of shift work on nurses’ health and functioning; Occupational biological hazards and risk of exposure to biological materials for nurses and midwives; Occupational causes and injuries for nurses and midwives; Occupational ergonomics for nurses and midwives

A new challenge for midwives and medical doctors in time of the threat of a mass terrorist attack and a life threatening mass disaster

Purpose:To present the results of research and evaluation study of the legal regulations and rules directly linked and connected to midwives' scope of practice and provide a response on how the professional population of midwives can act as adequate and independent medical providers in the threat of a mass terrorist attack and/or a life-threatening mass disaster event. Materials and methods: The data derives from the Supreme Chamber of Nurses and Midwives in Poland; National Council of Nurses and Midwives in Poland; Gazette of the Republic of Poland, Journal of Laws; curriculum outlines for professional midwifery higher education in Poland; scientific literature, scientific recommendations. The qualitative research method to the data sources in 2018 were used. Results: In the event of a mass terrorist attack and/or a life-threatening mass disaster, the possibility of a pregnant, birthing or postpartum woman and her newborn obtaining proper medical attention from a midwife is questionable. Conclusions:The threat of terrorism in the European Union has grown. A new implications are necessary for policy and practice to keep midwives in their profession to provide adequate quality and quantity of health care in event of a mass terrorist attack and/or a life-threatening mass disaster. In our study we found: a terrorist threat as a gap in the teaching of obstetrics and midwifery; restricted availability of pharmacological agents for use by non-military midwives in event of a terrorist attack and/or a life-threatening mass disaster; lack of authorizations under a midwife license to perform PCD and /or PMCD

Extraction of uranium from low - grade Polish ores : dictyonemic shales and sandstones

Leaching studies were performed to develop a suitable method for extraction of uranium from domestic uranium ores: dictyonemic shales and sandstones. The extracting procedure was composed of successive separation steps: crushing and grinding, acid or alkaline leaching, solid-liquid separation, and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) analyses of post-leaching solutions. The influence of such process parameters as temperature, pressure, particle size of solid material, kind of leaching solution and its concentration, on the recovery efficiency of uranium and accompanying metals were tested. The efficiency of uranium leaching with sulphuric acid solution achieved 81%. Satisfactory results were obtained for the alkaline leaching process. It was found that uranium can be selectively extracted by the alkaline leaching solution. Almost complete extraction of uranium from sandstones was achieved when a mixture of sodium carbonate and sodium hydroxide, with hydrogen peroxide as a leaching solution was used

Ion exchange investigation for recovery of uranium from acidic pregnant leach solutions

The article describes studies on the separation of uranium from acid pregnant leach solutions obtained from Polish uranium ores: dictyonema shales and sandstone rocks. Ion exchange chromatography was applied for uranium sorption, using commercially available, strongly basic anion exchanger, Dowex 1. In model experiments, the influence of degree of crosslinking of Dowex 1 on the efficiency of uranium extraction was investigated. The effect of H2SO4 concentration on the breakthrough curve of uranyl ions for the Dowex 1 resins, of different crosslinking: X4, X8 and X10, was examined. Unexpectedly high increase of exchange capacity of uranium was observed in case of Dowex 1X10. This gives potential opportunity of improving the effectiveness of uranium recovery process. Applying column packed with Dowex 1X10, ‘yellow cake’ with ca. 92% yield and high purity of recovered uranium was obtained. A block diagram of the procedure for uranium and lanthanides extraction from acidic leach liquor has been proposed