It was 30 years ago that 167 workers lost their lives when the Piper Alpha platform exploded off the coast of Aberdeen in the world's deadliest ever oil rig accident. The history of oil exploration and production is unfortunately littered with such disasters that serve as a chilling reminder of the inherent dangers that workers in the oil and gas industry face.
When it comes to the safety of oil and gas workers, nothing can be left to chance. It is not just the high-profile major incidents but the day to day healthcare of workers that needs to be managed. Moreover, this healthcare provision is made more difficult by the often remote and inhospitable regions that the sector operates in.
One company that provides extensive service to the oil and gas sector is Remote Medical International (RMI). “We provide medics that go to remote and challenging places around the world and take care of the workers for commercial companies including soldiers seconded to the UN and all the associated services in connection with providing that medical care such as equipment and supplies,” Wayne Wager, CEO Remote Medical International, said. “We are committed to a robust growth strategy. We just completed a strategic analysis and our goal is to be a $100 million company over the next few years.
“We are going to do that two ways. One is to grow organically by expanding the existing services, and then, besides, we are going to be acquisitive.” As part of that growth plan, RMI recently acquired HSE Offshore as part of its strategic initiative to expand its oil and gas offshore medical capabilities. As a global medical services provider, RMI has recognized the need to continue growing its business and operational capabilities in Europe and Africa, to get closer to customers and provide better response time to customer needs.
HSE Offshore will continue to operate under its name and will benefit from Remote Medical International’s global operational capacity, allowing it to reach more customers. Together, the companies will deliver the complete provision of medical services for companies operating globally in the oil, gas, petrochemical and mining industries.
Less can be more
The emergency medical evacuation, usually depicted by medics accompanying an injured worker into a medical helicopter, may look exciting but it is not always the best way to deal with incapacitated workers. “It's like the cavalry coming over the hill,” Wager added. “It's very exciting, and people talk about evacuations and it sounds very dramatic but in fact, and I'm speaking for RMI, our medical team is taught to minimize the drama and minimize the complexity of the healthcare without sacrificing any quality of outcomes.
“One of the things that I think has been, frankly, abused in the industry is at the drop of a hat workers are evacuated, and the quality of care they get is not necessarily better. We find that doing less, is more, on site. Monitoring the workers, the patient, very closely with our staff, they end up doing a lot better than had they been evacuated. Evacuations are again very glamorous, it sounds cool, but it's not necessarily the best thing for the worker.”
Evacuation in action
In the event of an emergency RMI put together a comprehensive medical emergency response plan. “I am not saying that we will not evacuate,” Wager continued. “We have a very specific procedure. If somebody gets hurt, what got hurt? What is the injury? What time of day? What type of evacuation is even available? We go through scenarios. We just did one the other day for an oil company where it was a mock evacuation.
“They surprised us and called us at a very strange time of day from Africa claiming they needed an evac. We knew it was a drill, but they said, ‘We want you to go into evacuation mode’. It was the time of day when the normal evacuation operation was not running. We toggled to helicopters, and the caller from the oil company that was testing us knew that all the helicopters were grounded, and they were checking us. Time of day, lack of back-up, plan B.
“We organized the medevac despite all that. We are prepared for that, but we find that we can treat most injuries very effectively on the ground and, in fact, by monitoring them with our medical personnel, their compliance with drug regimens, their compliance with therapy, and so forth is much better than if you just cut them loose and send them home wherever that is.”
Driven by people
At the core of any remote operation are the competence of the staff on site and the support they can call on. Before employing medical personnel RMI put them through a stringent online test that they must pass and then, once they have passed, they go through an interview process with RMI medics and its chief medical officer. “We are very confident in the people that we send out,” Wager explained.
“A very competent medic in the field is just one phone call away from our global communications center. They can call and get advice immediately from other medics and our medical doctor or staff. We also support them with equipment and supplies that are very high quality. They're working with the best equipment, and they have the best drugs available to them.
“The way medicine is practiced on a work site in a remote area is very different from somebody showing up in an urban ER setting. One of the other resources that our medics have is telemedicine so that they can send physiological signals, blood pressure, heart rate, ECG, and video to our medics at the communication center. We have a very, very comprehensive back-up for our medics in these remote places.”
