Workshop Report
How to Better Protect the Health of Internationally Recruited Seafarers?
CEJOEM 2000, Vol.6. No.1.:68-69
A report on the international maritime occupational health training courses held
in Gdynia, Poland
During the 1980s and 1990s, the national merchant fleets in many countries gradually decreased.
Ships operated under the national flag changed to the so-called “flags of convenience” of small
developing countries having no strict regulations on the social security and the health protection
of crews. The registration of ships there is cheap for shipowners, with no taxes, or with only
symbolic payments. The result is that thousands of merchant ships registered this way are crewed
by seafarers coming from the developing countries or newly independent countries of the former
Soviet Union, and from the previously “socialist” countries. These crews are paid much less than
it would be necessary to pay to the national seafarers belonging to countries in which the
shipowners are based.
What is more, such internationally recruited seafarers are much
less protected by the national trade unions, regarding the conditions of their work at sea.
Currently, only the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) is able, through their
representatives and affiliates in the large ports of the world, to inspect such ships and control
the working and living conditions of their crews, and to intervene, if necessary, to protect the
rights of seamen.
In addition to that, some unscrupulous shipowners continue to
operate old ships not properly maintained, the work on which is dangerous for the crew. And if
they are denied registration or technical inspection in one country, shipowners apply for
registration somewhere else, and get it. It also happens that the ownership of the vessel is
changed during the voyage, and salaries of the crew may not be paid for months back. It also
happened that after a disaster, loss of the ship and the crew, there was nobody to pay the due
compensation to the (non-insured) seafarers' families, or simply the shipowner disappeared.
Regarding the protection of the health of international seafarers,
their medical pre-sea and periodic examinations are conducted in various countries by various
physicians not conformed until recently. In 1998, ILO and WHO published Guidelines on these
examinations. These guidelines should be popularized in all maritime countries and all ports,
and followed in practice by health services there.
Action is needed in all maritime labor exporting countries to
develop modern health services for seafarers, to better protect and improve their health. With
this goal in mind, international training courses on maritime occupational health were conducted
for physicians at the Institute of Maritime and Tropical Medicine in Gdynia, Poland, which since
1972 has been the WHO Collaborating Centre in this field. Recently, a WHO Course in 1998 and an
IMHA (International Maritime Occupational Health) Course in 1999 took place. This activity was
financially supported by the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF).
Altogether, 38 physicians from 18 countries were trained. The
program of the course included the following subjects: conditions of work on ships and work-related
health risks of the crew; work-related diseases and injuries of seafarers and fishermen; accidents,
their consequences and prevention; pathology of seafarers; emergencies at sea; search and rescue
operations; survival at sea; hypothermia, hyperthermia and their treatment; cardiac arrest and
death at sea; malaria and other exotic diseases; drug and alcohol abuse on board ships;
psycho-social problems of seafarers; medical examinations of seafarers and ILO/WHO Guidelines;
medical guides for ships; medical supplies for ships and the list of drugs; health education and
promotion of seafarers; etc. The lecturers were physicians from the host Institute, and visiting
experts from Belgium, Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and USA.
Similar courses may be conducted also in the future, if the ITF
continues to support them.
Stanislaw Tomaszunas
| Back |