Specialist Major Trauma Management Course for Maritime Staff

alt Ensuring the smooth running of shipping passengers across the globe has always been a challenging experience. Over the past few years the personal risk to staff and members of the public has been seen to rise significantly. Quite often it seems there are violent assaults occurring upon leisure or merchant vessels. As the number of attacks and level of violence used increases, so does the risk of life-threatening injuries. As a result, staff may find themselves having to deal with the consequences of an assault head-on.

alt A random act of violence can erupt from nowhere with catastrophic consequences. At Speciality Oxygen we are only too aware of the number these incidents. Our instructors have attended many of the murders and serious assaults that make the news. In these instances, immediate and appropriate treatment can make the difference between life and death. Indeed on occasion; the lack of specialist training has led to potentially preventable deaths. This has other far-reaching consequences – where does the duty of care of ships crew / shipping operator stop with relation to the safety of its staff and clients? If the specialist training now exists to help mitigate the risk of unnecessary death or disability, does the ship operator fail in its legal duty of care by failing to train its staff appropriately?

At Speciality Oxygen we already provide training courses for high-risk civilian personnel and are working hard to ensure all of those requiring training have it available. But our caveat is that it must be taught by experts, people who have vast experience of actually dealing with these types of wounds rather than just training ‘from a textbook’. Lets be frank – minor wound management as taught on First Aid At Work courses does not equip you with either the knowledge or skills to deal with major trauma effectively. We should know – we teach first aid courses too!

alt Speciality Oxygen has developed the Specialist Major Trauma Management Course for professionals who are high risk of exposure to serious trauma. We regularly teach the military medics and doctors to deal with these types of injury but until now this level of training has not been available to civilians. In addition to the training we will be able to recommend or provide the small trauma packs to you and your organisation.

We cannot reduce the incidence of violent assaults but through our courses we can help to mitigate both the moral and legal consequences of such attacks for maritime staff.

Related press links -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/8689129.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2148444.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/8115662.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/7643561.stm