Health and safety hazards lurk everywhere and especially at workplaces! Globally however, it has become an important business goal for companies across the world to mitigate these workplace hazards effectively and to provide a safe haven for workers and employers to work in. Canada is particularly known for its varied topography, that includes a multitude of terrains like mountainous terrains, lakes, rivers and forests. Especially the British Columbia region hosts a wide range of service-oriented industries – right from forestry to construction to mining, to natural resource extraction related industries.The one characteristic that defines many of these industries is that they have to constantly mitigate health and safety risks for their employees and work spaces on a daily basis. Working in these industries includes people working in difficult conditions, remote locations and involve doing risky work with heavy machinery or chemicals or fire or water that could cause any number of accidents on their sites. As many of these industries fall in the range of hazardous ones due to the nature of the job or because of its location or processes- the Canadian government has since mandated that having a mobile treatment center at their worksite that can help mitigate some of the workplace hazard or risks for the employees working in these high-risk conditions and locations.
It is now almost a common practice in most Canadian industries to identify safety hazards at a workplace and have a comprehensive emergency response action plan in place which will serve as a blueprint on everything from sounding alerts, to rescue to evacuation and first aid and treatment.
Timely accessibility to immediate medical aid is most critical and valuable in industries like mining, forestry, construction or minerals extraction that require that employees to work at high altitudes, in confined spaces, in proximity of hazardous chemicals or substances or work underground, or work in extreme weather conditions and in and around water or in remote areas that are situated far from a medical facility.
In this blog, we detail some of the main reasons why there is a pressing need for more and more companies and entrepreneurs to invest in getting mobile casualty treatment center or and mtc at their worksites. These include:
-Accessibility– Putting Safety First
Access to medical aid is also a critical component of an effective emergency response action plan for any company. It is an essential response to an emergency on site so that injuries are minimized and people’s lives are saved. The main aim of having an mtc or a mobile rehabilitation center stationed at your worksite is to reduce work related injuries. A single mobile rehabilitation center bc at the worksite ensures that the company is taking a employee-first approach in an unforeseen situation and embracing the “safety first” mantra that is vital to its everyday operations.
In such cases, rather than wait for an ambulance or ride to the nearest hospital or medical facility, these remote medical services can provide timely and immediate advanced mobile first aid and safety treatment to an injured worker or workers. As this mobile medical unit is usually a certified Mobile First Aid Unit– it provides first aid services and ends up saving precious time for the critically injured patient.These mobile medical units are well equipped to treat everything from small cuts to head injury, fractures to an amputation to Asphyxia, contusions, electrocution , trauma, cardiac arrests and hemorrhages.
-They act as Emergency Medical Transportation Vehicles to ferry patients
Many a times when an injury or accident is serious and needs to be looked at in a hospital or nearest medical care facility, then these Medical Units or MTCs act as Emergency Medical Transportation Vehicles double up as an ambulance that provides last mile connectivity to healthcare to these employees. Since these Emergency Treatment Units come fitted with first aid kits, standard first aid equipment and certified medical attendants,they become the first responders to a critical patient and safeguard the former’s health throughout their journey to the nearest hospital or trauma center.
This advanced mobile first aid and safety vehicle is usually stocked with remote medical supplies and has a team of Emergency Medical Responder attendants.The mobile nature of this mtc unit allows patients to be transported even among the roughest terrains and weather conditions to seek immediate medical attention.These mtcs are also called as the treatment center BC in the British Columbia region. This unit is usually mounted on trucks or vans and hence are capable of being dispatched in seconds. This makes them adept to handle any number of medical emergencies or casualties occurring onsite.
-Highly trained medics for attending to every emergency
As per the Occupational Health & Safety Guidelines, these Mobile medical treatment centers are retrofitted to deal with medical emergencies and are to be manned by trained staff who are usually OFA Level 1, 2 or 3 Attendants who are also called Emergency Medical Responder attendants. This staff is available with three different levels of skill sets, training and certification. While the OFA Level 3 attendants are medically trained, companies can also go for having EMR certified attendants who are better at first aid and other complex medical emergencies and also work better with pre-hospital medical equipment. So based on the nature of the industry, companies can choose medical staff who can complement their industry and man these mobile medical treatment centers.
– Reliability- Breaking through barriers
It is a widely accepted fact today that the first few hours of a medical emergency are the most crucial for a patient. It is at times like this that a remote location or a high- altitude or high-risk worksite is at a disadvantage as they do not have immediate access to emergency medical services. At times like this, it is these Mobile First Aid Units or mtcs that can provide reliable equipment and staff who can assess the injury and begin treating a critically injured patient on the site on an immediate basis.
The mtcs reliability is further enhanced by the fact that they can eliminate logistical barriers or entry points to healthcare like transportation, waiting queues or tedious administrative processes for patients that are commonly found in hospitals these days. Further with trained staff and standardized medical equipment available in the mtc that is parked on the worksite daily, employees working in these high risk industries can easily access healthcare in an affordable manner.
Convenience, high safety standards and versatility of the advanced mobile first aid and safety vehicle along with trained staff make it an innovative solution for many industries. This makes mtcs apart of a reliable and effective healthcare delivery model. By functioning as the smaller unit of a larger healthcare system, it provides accessible and sustainable healthcare that is similar to any traditional healthcare setting. What’s more, these mtcs also offer regular screenings, health check-ups, vaccinations and even offer specialty care and referrals to employees. These make mtcs an attractive proposition for companies operating in the British Columbia region and this way they can achieve higher employee satisfaction too.
-Scope is high, can be deployed in a variety of industries
These mobile medical treatment centers or Kamloops emergency treatment units as they are called in the Kamloops area are similar to having an industrial ambulance on the go at your workplace! Mtcs usually house a first aid and dressing station, standard emergency response equipment and communication equipment including cell phones, GPS units and handheld radios.As mobile medical treatment is increasingly becoming more mainstream, many industries are preferring to have medics proficient in dealing with industry-specific emergencies and medical treatments at their worksites.
This has led to rise of specialized medical personnel like the Forestry medics, Mining medics, Major Construction medics and Oil and Gas medics who are generally conversant with emergencies occurring in these fields and are experts at caring for patients here. Incidentally these kind of Kamloops mobile treatment center units can also be hired from companies like Kel-Dam First Aid Services Ltd that operate out of here the Kamloops area located in the British Columbia region.