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Ensuring Health and Safety Offshore

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Ensuring Health and Safety Offshore: Meet our Nurse in Angola

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If someone is injured on an oil rig, it can considerably impact operations onboard, especially in terms of Lost Time Injuries (LTIs). This is why it is important to have a dedicated medical resource onboard for offshore projects' overall health and safety strategy.

International SOS delivers comprehensive emergency medical services for an offshore site in Angola operated by a major energy company. As part of this medical set-up, my colleague Nuno da Cruz, our emergency nurse in Angola, is stationed on one of the company’s oil rigs. He delivers medical services to our client’s employees. The offshore oil and gas industry has stringent health and safety requirements. He ensures everyone onboard the oil rig receives the highest medical care.

Having initially served in the Portuguese army for over 15 years, Nuno later transitioned to a career in nursing. He holds a postgraduate diploma (PgDIP) in emergency and trauma nursing and works as an emergency nurse at International SOS.

He was recently recognised as the 2024 safety champion by our client as part of their ongoing commitment to personnel safety. This recognition reflects not only his commitment to maintaining safety standards in challenging offshore conditions but also that of International SOS.

Proactive Approach for Efficient Emergency Response

Nuno explains that a large part of his work rests on being proactive in delivering medical care. In his role, he is responsible for emergency response and stabilisation, as well as for promoting a safe working environment onboard the rig.

We must constantly educate the employees onboard about possible health risks to contribute to their health and safety.

This consequently contributes to mitigating the risks for LTIs and, thus, promotes business continuity.

Nuno also shares that besides regular clinical duties, his day-to-day includes:

  • Carrying out emergency drills that ensure our emergency response plans are updated.
  • Training our client’s employees in first-aid skills.
  • Health promotion talks to spread awareness of diseases.

He undertakes daily consultations onboard the rig, addressing various medical needs and emergencies, from flu cases to more severe injuries.

The dynamic nature of emergency nursing fascinates me, especially given my background. I love that it allows me to make a meaningful impact by helping others.

To ensure that he contributes positively to the safety and wellbeing of his colleagues, we ensure that Nuno has access to continuous learning. As such, he leverages International SOS’ medical resources, continuous training programmes (including the International SOS Occupational Health and Safety certificate course), and a robust clinical governance structure where he can rely on our seasoned international medical experts, who are a call away.

Communication is key in what we do. I remember that shortly after my arrival on the oil rig, there was a patient who was critically ill. He had suffered a stroke and had to be evacuated onshore. We successfully worked with the client’s management team and our 24/7 Johannesburg Assistance Centre to coordinate the air medical evacuation of the patient.

This experience highlighted the importance of timely intervention, a medically vetted emergency response plan, and collaborative teamwork in emergency situations.

For all these pieces to fit perfectly, we had to communicate with one another constantly and effectively, learning from each other. This is the beauty of our line of work.