People – Health and Safety ... You deserve SpringRock

People – Health and Safety

The health and Wellness of our employees extends beyond our offices, bases and rigs; it extends to their families and the communities where we live and work. Hence, we actively evaluate the health risk related to our operations that have the potential to affect our employees and the public. Our goal is to address conditions that are prevalent in the locations to ensure we provide efficient and effective solutions to protect our people and we also extend these practices to the communities.

There are a number of infectious diseases and other health challenges that can affect our people, their families and the communities. These include

  • Malaria
  • Tubeculosis
  • HIV-AIDS
  • Stress
  • Outbreaks like Ebola, Bird Flu etc

Thus, SpringRock has developed programs that are geared towards ensuring the health and wellness of the people.

Malaria Prevention Program

SpringRock operates mainly in malaria-infested countries, hence malaria prevention is a key element of keeping our people safe and healthy. Our prevention program is a four step program named A-B-C-D.

malaria

 

Awareness & Knowledge

Creation of awareness on the health risk of malaria is the first step towards prevention. This awareness is very important both to persons who were born and raised in the malaria endemic countries and the persons who are travelling to those countries from countries where malaria does not exist.

Persons who were born and raised in countries where malaria are endemic tend to be most complacent with malaria prevention. Hence the awareness program is targeted equally at all persons and the same rigor would be used in creating awareness and knowledge for all our employees and their families both nationals from malaria endemic countries who are considered to be semi-immune to malaria and persons from countries where malaria does not exist who are considered as non-immune.

Prior to travelling to a high risk country, every employee or contractor must be informed of the malaria risk at the location and preventive medication commenced accordingly. This is a condition for travelling to a malaria high risk location.

The host manager must ensure full compliance with this requirement.

Upon arrival at the high risk location, every employee must receive a briefing about malaria prevention. This briefing must cover as a minimum:

  • The risk of dying from Malaria if not treated
  • Mosquito Bite Prevention
  • Chemo-prophylaxis requirements
  • Early detection of symptoms
  • The Malaria Kit will then be handed over to the incoming person(s)

Nationals of the countries we operate are equally exposed to the risk of malaria and their greatest risk is when they travel to countries where malaria is not endemic as in those places the doctors and health care givers are not well vexed in malaria management.

  • Every person travelling overseas must carry a Malaria Kit and show this to the airport dispatch team.
  • No one is permitted to travel out of the high risk location without a malaria kit.

Line Management should allocate resources and ensure bite prevention measures are taken. These measures include:

  • Mosquito bed nets installed in staff/guest houses and other company-managed accommodation where air conditioners are not present;
  • Windows screens in place where windows are likely to stay open (i.e. Toilets, kitchen);
  • Air conditioning – only guest houses or hotels that meet these standards may be used;
  • Regular treatment of houses, offices, other facilities, standing water against insects;
  • Repellents and insecticide sprays;
  • Restrictions on outdoors (open air) social events after dark;
  • Advisory on use of Long sleeves, closed shoes and socks; and
  • Insect repellant coveralls will be provided at all locations.

Preventive medication is mandatory for all non-immune persons. Managers with the support of HSE and the SpringRock Group Medical Adviser shall ensure that appropriate chemoprophylaxis is permanently available on location in adequate quantities so that there is no supply disruption for employees and family members under preventive treatment.

Detection and Cure

Malaria Kit

Management should ensure that every employee/ visitor, and contractor that leaves Sub-Saharan Africa has a curative kit. The Malaria Kit should contain the following items:

  • Approved curative treatment;
  • A testing kit with instructions; and
  • An information card with the Malaria HOTLINE numbers.

The Malaria Prevention training is given to all nationals including their families. We also provide the same training to community members to give them the knowledge and tools they need to keep themselves and their families safe from malaria.

Tuberculosis is an infectious disease which is an endemic in Nigeria and other countries in which we operate. Hence, SpringRock has the responsibility to screen and identify employees or contractors who may have Active Tuberculosis infection and protect other employees, contractors and client’s personnel from contracting Tuberculosis from such individuals.

Our tuberculosis program applies to all SpringRock employees and contractors working at any offshore locations in Nigeria or any other country we work. Individuals who refuse to be screened will NOT be permitted to visit or work on such offshore locations.

There are two stages of infection namely active and latent. “Active” is a stage of Tuberculosis infection associated with characteristic symptoms including coughing out of sputum containing the infective organism. Tuberculosis may be contracted through a prolonged, close contact with such an individual.

While “latent” is the stage of Tuberculosis infection where the infective organism is present in the individual without causing disease or any related symptoms.

SpringRock engages qualified health professionals authorized by the Company to perform sample collection, coordinate processing of samples and analysis at an accredited laboratory, and reporting the results of the tests to the Company’s Medical Adviser.

For each screening test the Testing Officer shall send the report to the designated SpringRock Officer while retaining a copy. The completed TB Questionnaire shall also be attached. The screening test results shall be reported as Positive, Negative or Indeterminate.

Details of this program are in our Health Management Manual.

SpringRock provides awareness training to ensure that our people understands the risks associated with HIV-AIDS and are well equipped to protect themselves from infection.

The training is given within the first 90 days of engagement with SpringRock and repeated every 3 years,

We also extend this training to the families of our employees and to the community where we work when we conduct community health awareness programs.

SpringRock recognizes the impact of Stress on the day to day life of our people. We also note that stress cannot be completely eliminated and there are good and bad stresses. Hence we have developed a stress management training that is aimed at helping our people cope and reduce their stress.

For employees an awareness of the links between mental health and stress, plus ways of coping with stress, is of great advantage to the individual, as is the ability to recognize when professional advice is needed to cope with psychological problems. At an individual level the signs of stress may include psychological or behavioral problems, non-specific physical symptoms, short or long-term health effects or worsening of existing health conditions. At an organizational level, symptoms of stress include; increased rates of short-term sickness absence, high staff turnover, poor performance including high levels of error, high incident rates and a high level of complaints by individual employees

Substance abuse is defined as any substance, legal or illegal, used in an improper way that chemically modifies the body function and results in psychological or behavioral changes and can lead to dependency and or physical addiction.

Substance abuse includes alcohol, illegal drugs, medication and other substances like nicotine and caffeine.

SpringRock has a substance abuse policy which outlines the position of the company as related to substance abuse. To support our people we have a substance abuse training that is aimed at providing awareness and knowledge on the subject and guidance on how to avoid substance abuse and its associated health challenges.

In most parts of the world, outbreak of infectious diseases occurs periodically. This is true for the part of the world in which SpringRock people work and live in.

SpringRock has built a strong capability to prevent and combat infectious diseases and this strength we can and would always muster to also combat outbreaks that can occur. These outbreaks are typically not limited or contained to a limited environment and hence our effort would extend beyond SpringRock and result in our working with local authorities and other companies to mobilize support for the communities including our people.

In the event of an outbreak SpringRock would work to ensure the safety of our employees and their families, our contractors and stakeholders. We would also liaise with the responsible authorities to identify the areas of support required in managing the outbreak. SpringRock would provide materials, information and volunteer the time of our people in working with the authorities and primary responders to an outbreak, to ensure the outbreak is effectively contained with minimal impact to our communities and people.

In addition, we encourage wellness and healthy lifestyle practices through the dissemination of information and knowledge that will help the people live well and stay safe.

We also conduct wellness fares which are fun filled family program that are aimed at having the participants have fun, socialize, exercise while at the same time learn useful practices and measures which they can use to improve their wellness and protect themselves from infections and improve their health and overall wellbeing.

Our Wellness fares would involve our employees, their families and members of the communities and would be a yearly event in the various locations in which we operate.

One of the highest risks our people are exposed to is driving risk. While we have active driver training in SpringRock, we recognize that having only our employees well trained in driving safety is not completely adequate in ensuring their safety while driving or while travelling in a motor vehicle as the behavior of other drivers impacts the overall outcome of a road travel.

Hence, SpringRock has implemented a driving training program for drivers in the communities where we live and work. The aim of this program is to provide drivers in the communities with the practical skills needed to drive safely and to respond to and mitigate driving risks. The program is in two categories comprising of a one day and two days program.

The one-day course covers defensive driving and passenger safety course.

While the two-days version includes in addition to the program in the one-day version; a first aid training and sharing of lessons learned and experienced encountered by the drivers with fellow participants.

The program will be welcomed by our host communities and would receive very good participation.

The Sustainable Development Process in SpringRock