Offshore oil rig nursing careers in Middle East

If you have the right skills and a strong desire to part ways with dry earth, you might consider a nursing career aboard an oil rig offshore in Middle East. Dozens of employees of oil companies spend a week or two while working on offshore oil rig, used to drill oil exploration in deep waters of Middle East. Companies should use helicopters to transport workers to the offshore oil rig, and the remote location of earth and health care facilities causes necessary full-time employment for rig nurses. So each single offshore oil rig provides offshore medic job for rig nurse.

Rig nurse job duties

Offshore nurse on the oil platform provides regular health care and emergency care for illness and injuries sustained by the members of the crew of the offshore oil drilling rig. Most teams do not have doctors on board. Thus, nurses performed with great autonomy and make medical decisions when necessary. Nurses assess conditions, offer health advice, monitor vital signs, control blood pressure and lung function, maintain medical records, get medical and emergency response teams lead supplies.

Qualifications to get job of offshore oil rig medic (rig nurse) in Middle East.

If you want to get a job as offshore oil rig medic or rig nurse you must have a two-year degree from an accredited registered nurse program. Job seeker must also be licensed to practice as a registered nurse. Most employers also require you to have work experience in health care. Oil companies of Middle East prefer nurses with experience in the care and treatment of emergency divers. Lowland International, which hired rig nurses for offshore drilling oil rigs, also requires nurses to complete a course in advanced life support, a medical course at sea and first aid course at sea.

Middle East Offshore oil rig nurse job conditions

Working on offshore oil rigs always means high risk jobs. The injuries happens to rig workers regularly. Thus to work as a nurse rig you must have exceptional skills of making quick decisions and the ability to think on your feet. You must also be able to work long hours with little supervision and minimal assistance. You need to have excellent skills in first aid, knowledge of the symptoms associated with common diseases and medical conditions and good diagnostic skills. Also, in unexpected cases and accident offshore rig nurse must be available 24 hours per day to treat the workers if needed.

Ideal for a career as a rig nurse candidate has few obligations on land. In general, the job works best for people who are single without dependents and can manage to spend long periods offshore. Each month, nurses spend two or three consecutive weeks on the platform followed by two or three weeks on the ground. During his time on the team, working 12-hour shifts for 14 days. You should handle well as the work required for the treatment of injuries, sometimes critical stress, with limited assistance or supervision.

Offshore nurses experience

Nurse share her experience as offshore nurse on oil rig and Repsol refinery in Tarragona.

50 kilometers from the coast, with shifts of 14 days and 14 resting on a platform 42 meters high, 70 long and 30 wide, where up to 64 people are engaged in pumping oil. Here works Vicente Giner Arcos, one of the three nurses, unique of its kind in Spain Repsol oil rig in Tarragona. "Whenever people ask me if my work is interesting, I answer yes. Because of its location, enjoying a unique marine environment spend watching dolphins and whales. There is a security barrier, thanks to a support boat that denied access to fishing, and is creating an area rich in marine fauna. It's nice, but we must not forget that it is your job and your workplace. When there is time like today, with the rough water, you think, Wow, impresses! We are conditioned to weather. Summer is pleasant, there is usually calm and sunsets in the Mediterranean are spectacular. Winter is worse, the wind, the cold it's hard ". Vincent goes to work by helicopter. "The flight arrives at 9. At 8 am at the airport of Reus. Need to pass customs controls, as we go into international waters and flying. It takes about 20 minutes to get to oil rig, very nice. When I arrived, the first thing I do is walk around the entire rig to see who is working and where. I like to see where my workers. Not only patients but colleagues and friends with whom I live every day. This is not a factory where you see maybe once a year in medical cabin. You know their needs, allergies, reactions... Many years together. If you get up and answer in monosyllables, I know something's wrong. Notice how the nurse got close link with worker".

The platform has only nursing service. In case of emergency or require a medical diagnosis, the nurse asks support Radio-Medical Spanish Centre, the Social Marine Institute. Along with health care on oil rig, nurse also has specific responsibilities under the workplace, such as control and food hygiene, medication custody or maintenance of lifeboats. "They have to be in perfect condition. Review the medication and first aid kit, keeping everything under current legislation, we must know and handle the naval terminology. "They should also know every corner of the platform. "Anytime you can call in an emergency substation pumps and must know where it is to go with the orderlies." In case of evacuation, it is the rig nurse who coordinates, together with the platform supervisor. "We followed all procedures, including an "emergency plan".

After seven years on the shelf, Vicente is clear in recommending their work, the difficulty of reconciling work and family. "Not everyone is prepared to work in these conditions. When you step on stage you know if you like or if you can not endure. There are colleagues who have come a few weeks and could not reconcile it with his personal life. It's complicated" he says.

Safety and prevention are two priorities in all the rigs of Repsol, both on land based and offshore. Nurses work in coordination with the technical security and provide disease prevention and health monitoring, says Santiago Ortiz, nurse Tarragona refinery. "We interact a lot with rig security in both risk assessment and dissemination among employees. Also we do health promotion, for example with cardiovascular risk factors or certain tasks musculoskeletal and periodically we train those workers who needs. We monitor workers at risk of exposure to products such as benzene, for example, although everything is very controlled. It is a closed detectors on every floor and personal protective equipment.

On offshore oil platfrom, Vicente Giner also stresses that security "is a priority". At the margin, they also develop campaigns regularly health promotion and prevention, healthy eating workshops, first aid, safety, smoking cessation campaigns, etc.

Responsible for occupational health. Nursing service Repsol refinery in Tarragona operates 24 hours a day. In his works, for 33 years, Santiago Ortiz, occupational health nursing of 830 people working in this industrial installation. Of his work, it emphasizes the direct relationship established between personal health and the risks of the job. Santiago stressed the importance of nursing job. We care for workers on oil rig and must always remember that they are people with emotions and feelings.

Nursing clinic on oil rig

The nursing consultation on the oil rig is located in accommodation modules, where the rooms and common rooms like kitchens and bathrooms. "It's clean areas, where life develops after work. Obviously everything is here smaller and compact. For nursing, we have a dispensary. It is a more open room, with all the necessary equipment for our work with a hospital bed, a table for cures, cabinets for medication, mini fridge, autoclave, everything. It is very thorough ", as described by Vicente Giner.

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