Henrik Jensen, Managing Director, Danica Crewing Services
Hamburg, Germany, headquartered Danica Crewing Services is advising ship drivers to work out care when making staff transitions while the coronavirus break out remains to rampage.
Responding to sector asks for seafarers to be offered unique traveling dispensation, Henrik Jensen, taking care of supervisor of Danica Crewing Services, alerts that staff deal with a larger threat of capturing the infection while they take a trip to and also from posts utilizing public transportation networks.
Better to prolong agreements where feasible, he suggests, cautioning that vendor vessels are unfit to look after seriously sick seafarers.
“I understand why the ITF, ICS and others are arguing that seafarers should continue to travel to and from vessels for regular crew changeovers,” statesJensen “However, with a potential 100,000 seafarers transiting each month, I do not believe this is the best approach at this present time.”
“Some vessel operators think it is stressful for crew to stay onboard for longer and better for them to go home – I disagree,” Jensen states. “That may well be the case for crew who have completed postings of more than nine months, such as many Filipino ratings do. However, for those with contract lengths of four to seven months, or less, I think it is not a problem to stay longer, rather than risk becoming infected as they transit home, or to jeopardize the health of those remaining by potentially bringing infected seafarers on to the vessel in replacement,” he clarified, explaining that the MLC does permit an optimal regard to year mixed-up.
Mr Jensen alerts that the threat to seafarers dropping ill mixed-up is much above for those coming onto land: “If the homebound seafarer obtains contaminated after that ideally the treatment systems in their house nation will certainly have the ability to deal. What truly worries me is what will certainly take place to a contaminated seafarer onboard.
“Firstly, no industrial vessels are outfitted to manage a team participant seriously ill from coronavirus Covid -19 that might need air flow and also extensive treatment. Help might be extremely far if the vessel gets on a lengthy trip– and also also might not be easily offered in port. Secondly, if the infection comes onboard after that it will certainly probably impact a number of individuals, otherwise the whole staff. Will the ship after that have the ability to run in a risk-free means? How can vessel drivers give treatment to a whole staff way out mixed-up?
“In my opinion, the safest way – although inconvenient and potentially stressful for the individual seafarer – is to halt the crew changes until the situation is under better control.”
Jensen includes that procedures need to be implemented to alleviate the troubles dealt with by seafarers embarking on lengthy posts. “Owners need to bear in mind that some seafarers may start to suffer from fatigue and that it might be necessary to adjust the crew’s workload where possible,” he states.
Jensen acknowleges that seafarers might deal with undesirable circumstances while the infection spreads out amongst the populace in your home. “Owners should prepare for the unfortunate – but inevitable – situation where some of the onboard seafarers’ relatives will become ill or even pass away and, sadly, it will not be possible to repatriate the seafarer as it normally would be done,” he stated.
“In Danica we have set-up contingency plans to deal with such situations, which include ensuring that external experts in mental health and well-being are ready to speak with the seafarers and relatives in their native language if needed and to give advice on how to cope with the stress.”
“These are difficult times and we must all pull together and make sacrifices to help each other. The world owes seafarers a great debt in keeping international trade – especially food and medicines – flowing,” ends Jensen.
