Ships are vessels of the sea. If one falls sick or gets injured in a ship then the situation can become quite critical as there are no hospitals in a ship and the nearest one would be miles away. In the olden days if someone fell sick while on board in a ship they would be treated with sedatives and were treated with whatever limited resources that were available in the sea. This was a reason why many people died on ships in the olden days.

We are now going to discuss a very important aspect of sailing that is called managing severe injury and medical ailments aboard ship. Well with time medical science has made huge progress as a result the ships are now equipped with all the modern machinery and technology that might be of help to anyone who is falling sick in the ship.

It is interesting to know how the medical service in a ship has transformed over the years. Initially a medical officer was assigned in the ship. He was not a qualified doctor but they were trained in first aid and the maximum they could do in case of a severe injury was give sedatives till the ship reached a port. In the early 1920 the radios in a ship were used to communicate with doctors on shore to find out what treatment should be provided. However, this system had a major constraint as the signals were not available all the time. Later on helicopters were used to air lift the sick from the ships. Even speed boats were used in some occasions. There have been incidents that to save the life of a cadet the whole ship was deviated. However, this would be a huge financial blow to the shipping company and not that all would allow this to happen.

If you are planning a cruise or you are planning to join a ship as a seafarer then you will definitely find this article on managing severe injury and medical ailments aboard ship of interest. Well you don’t need to worry any more. The huge progress in telecommunication has given a truly life saving concept to the ships and it is called telemedicine. Sounds weird right but trust us this word has transformed the way injuries are dealt with in a ship.

The concept is simple. When there is an injury or a medical emergency that the medical officer has not much knowledge about. He or she sends a mail to the on shore doctors. They exchange mails and also show videos to explain how the emergency can be treated. Nowadays huge live videos are exchanged in order to understand and treat the complexities of the medical emergencies on board. This has definitely made the job of managing severe injury and medical ailments aboard ship much easy.

High resolution pictures of the injury, live data of blood pressure, pulse rates, etc when exchanged makes it much easy for the onshore teams to understand and advise the correct treatment procedure. The shipping companies all over the world are spending huge amount of money on developing the concept of telemedicine. As this is the only solution to save lives on sea. It is perhaps much better that diverting the ships or air lifting the seafarers at the last moment. The concept of telemedicine has three main elements that is the medical personnel on the ship, the medical team onshore and lastly the monitoring devices or satellites that transform the images. Considering these three elements the shipping companies are spending huge money on training the medical personnel on the latest medical terms.

The shipping companies assign a team of well educated and experienced doctors on shore who are responsible to look into any medical emergency situation. As far as the technical part is concerned the shipping companies ensure that the ships are equipped with all modern facilities in medical science. This is true that the advancements made in the field of managing severe injury and medical ailments aboard ship have saved many lives of seafarers. It has also ensured that the quality of life on sea improves. This has also been a major contributor that many people are showing interest in sea jobs of late.