H E A LT H , S A F E T Y, E N V I R O N M E N T & T R A I N I N G
Offshore medics shoulder
increasing burdens amid
heightened health focus
Industry may need to better support health professionals
as pandemic-related testing/documentation and increased needs
around rig crews’ mental wellbeing lead to staggering workloads
BY STEPHEN FORRESTER, CONTRIBUTOR
W hile HSE has long been a core focus area in the oil and
gas industry, the offshore health professional – a group
that includes doctors, nurses and paramedics, termed
“medics” – often gets overlooked. Every rig must have at least one
health professional onboard to legally operate, yet industry rec-
ognition of the role these individuals play and how critical they
are to the overall drilling operation has been limited. Regardless,
Highlights
Offshore medics have to handle all virus
testing and prepare procedures for
managing outbreaks on rigs, including how
infected individuals are evacuated.
Increased focus on rig crews’ mental health
and wellbeing demands additional training
and longer hours from offshore medics.
There is enhanced awareness around
the importance of the medic’s role on the
rig, but more efforts are needed to better
support them and to make sure they know
they’re valued.
20 those working in this focus area have stayed the course, often
with a noble dedication to doing what needs to be done when no
one else will answer the call. The COVID-19 pandemic has helped
the industry better understand the burden medics shoulder.
Drilling contractors and offshore medics
While the offshore drilling industry had previously prepared
for and dealt with infectious diseases, the scale and impact of the
COVID-19 pandemic still caught the industry off guard, said Dr
Robina McCann, Company Medical Director for Seadrill. Drilling
contractors had developed protocols around other diseases, like
Ebola, but many of those plans never had to be activated. Further,
plans were smaller in scope due to the limited area of impact.
With COVID-19, perception of the role of the medic shifted, Dr
McCann said. “Everyone suddenly understood how important the
medic was,” she explained. “It’s not that they weren’t understood
before, but rather that people realized that the medic was the
person with the specialized skill set that could help them with
their problems.”
With the pandemic came an onslaught of new tasks for the
offshore medic, including handling all virus testing and prepar-
ing procedures for what to do if there is an outbreak. Medics have
also managed the process for escalation in the event of infection,
to whom they should escalate, and how evacuation of infected
individuals from the rig is handled.
Whether infection occurs is only part of the puzzle, as all tested
individuals become part of the ever-growing pile of documenta-
M AY/J U N E 202 2 • D R I L L I N G C O N T R AC T O R
H E A LT H , S A F E T Y, E N V I R O N M E N T & T R A I N I N G
The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it an onslaught of additional responsibilities for medics on offshore rigs, resulting in
workloads that have doubled, triped or even quadrupled. This has pressured some medics to leave the industry, and those
who remain say they continue to face diffi cult challenges.
tion on the rig related to the virus. On top of COVID-related duties,
medics have also been tasked with providing psychological sup-
port to the crew — such that some medics now require training
in psychology.
“Throughout the pandemic, some of our operations people had
to maintain quarantining for up to 14 days in a hotel,” Dr McCann
said. “We had guys psychologically breaking in that time, having
panic attacks from the stress. So, the medics were being asked
to step up and help detect and prevent that from happening, as
well.” All of this means the medic’s workload has doubled or tripled
over the past two years, with little recognition despite the
increased risks to their own safety and health.
Dr McCann explained that the confluence of these factors has
led to burnout not only in the onshore global health workforce in
general but also, more specifically, an exodus of talent from the
offshore medical profession. “The industry has lost a lot of med-
ics,” she said. “Globally, we’ve seen a trend over the last two years
that has seen many medics and health professionals just quit.
They said they were scared, and they didn’t want to do it anymore.
Some didn’t even want to work onshore and left the healthcare
sector entirely.”
Dr McCann said she hopes that medics get more recognition for
the job they do, considering the importance of the work and the
personal risk they’re taking. “The industry needs to move away
from checking a regulatory box to purposefully and intentionally
looking at how critical this role is and making sure they know
they’re valued,” she remarked.
One approach Dr McCann took to establish better connections
with offshore medics was to schedule regular support and knowl-
edge sharing meetings . Because the medical professionals on rigs
are typically hired via a third-party provider, such meetings didn’t
used to take place. She also lobbied to implement high-level per-
sonal protective equipment early in the pandemic, as she wanted
to ensure that Seadrill did its part to keep medics safe as they
worked on the front lines.
The company believes that health and safety extends beyond
the traditional focus on injury preventio n to include physical and
mental wellbeing. Medics play a huge part in that strategy, Dr
McCann explained, noting: “We work with the medics to provide
a true holistic prevention and promotion model offshore.”
However, as the drilling contractor does not have final say
on the number of medics deployed to an offshore asset, she also
noted that the onus should be on the operating companies to look
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