At some point in time even the most safety conscious vessel operator will experience a serious accident or illness onboard that requires someone to be disembarked for medical reasons. Considerations such as where the ship is located, the nature of the underlying illness or injury as well as the personal profile of the patient involved may require the operator to provide an escort or chaperone to ensure safe and secure passage of that patient either home or to a medical facility.
“Having provided this service informally for several of our clients we realized that there is no consistent standard across the maritime industry for escort services accompanying injured or ill crew. Many vessel operators look to co-workers, port agents or in some cases attorneys to escort these crewmembers without considering the services of licensed maritime medical personnel such as doctors, nurses or EMTs (emergency trained technicians)”, said Peter Hult, CEO at Vikand.