PHILIPPINES HIGHLIGHTS

Inaugural Address

Capt Theodoros Gad,
Crew Training & Development Manager, A.M. Nomikos Transworld Maritime Agencies S.A.

Good Afternoon to All,

I feel very proud to attend this conference and have the opportunity to speak with you today. I will try to give some hints covering today's topic and briefly introduce you to what we do as a company to cover this major topic of "seafarers' mental health and wellness”.

First of all, we feel that cadets are our seafarers and future officers, from day one. For this reason, the perspective we approach this issue is uniform for all our seafarers. Mental health is an important part of physical wellbeing at sea. Depression or serious mood imbalance can jeopardize the safe operation of the vessel and the wellbeing of fellow seafarers, and in the most serious cases can lead to suicide. Incidents resulting from high levels of stress and poor mental health of seafarers occur at a high rate and can have tragic consequences for those involved.

Let’s see some statistics of 2010-2019 period prior covid effect.

As we can see from the diagram, irrespective of the fluctuation per Year, the number of mental disorders is big enough. In some cases, though, the issue can be escalated to deaths and suicides. It is also noted from this slide, that as we are moving towards today, the number of serious incidents (death, suicide) has been minimized. This could be also attributed to the actions and measures taken by our Industry to control this effect.

So, what we do, or better who we are?

AM Nomikos is a Traditional Family Shipping Company, established back in the early 60's (1958) currently running about 45 Ships. Our Seafarers are mostly Filipino & Ukrainian/Russian and our fleet ships are flying Marshall Islands &Liberian & Hong Kong Flags.

What is our Action plan for crew wellness?

Our target No.1 is to enhance our crew awareness of Mental health, improve resilience, and proactively identify potential mental issues or needs. To achieve this, in collaboration with Sailor’s Society, our Company is participating in the Wellness at sea program for 2021-22. We are also using the 24/7 Helpline. This service is confidential and available 24/7 to all seafarers and their families. It is available and voluntary, offering confidential mental support and consultation to crew in multiple languages. Wellness at Sea training courses are offered voluntarily to our crew ashore prior to joining and the Ship Connect service is utilized. This virtual proactive support service is offered to seafarers onboard our Ships through the Wellness at Sea program.

Target No.2 is to upgrade recreation equipment and enhance crew wellness & team building onboard. For this reason, we have developed a plan on which basis an assessment and additional welfare items supplied on ships as necessary, by prioritizing needs and considering our crew Nationality & trends.

Target No.3 is to protect and enhance the physical and mental health of our seafarers. For this reason, due diligence on pre-joining medical examinations is exercised along with general health & mental health evaluation. A Dedicated team of doctors and physicians of different specialities also supported by a web of specialists and medical centres worldwide are utilized for 24/7 telemedical consultancy. Also, medical information is provided onboard by Health bulletins & Dietary protocols for seafarers.

To summarize all the above mentioned, what is the reason why the wellness of cadets is important?

• To minimize mental fatigue.
• To avoid health risks for the individual.
• To mitigate the risk of incidents onboard.
• To keep up a sustainable co-operation with our future Officers.
• To keep our crew healthy and happy.

Lastly, I want to share with you a short clip, captured from IMO depicting in brief, what a career at sea looks like.

Hope you enjoyed this video as I did.

And at this point, our session is over. To wrap-up, please note that you can reach out to our Company by contacting our collaborating agents, throughout the Philippines.

THANK YOU for attending today and wishing you ALL THE BEST in your future career!