Mental health is an important part of physical wellbeing aboard ship. And in the context of the Ship and working onboard we are talking not only about well-being, good-feeling and “good mood” of one isolated person/seafarer, but we are talking about the safety of the entire Ship at times. Psychological problems on board, unfortunately are frequent, complex, multi-dimensional and expressed in multiple ways combining often psychological, behavioral and physical symptoms. They range from non-severe and short episodes, which can be treated, to long-lasting and life impacting conditions and sometimes acute and life-threatening crisis. Depression can lead to suicide, a tragic loss of a life resulting from a situation that might have been prevented or resolved. It’s not always that mental status is extremely severe or life threatening and dramatic in every case, but not being addressed timely and professionally it can become escalated and dangerous.
AP Companies has been providing Mental Health Helpline to number of Seafarers working onboard or during their time off, for some years now. We have seen that the opportunity of the ship master and the seafarers to access professional psychological help whenever it is needed, cannot be underestimated. We have noticed that the service would be used from time to time at the initial stage of launching it on a Vessel, but as efficiency of the outcome is obvious and access to the service is straight forward and easy, it would be used on a regular basis and dramatically improve safety and “happiness” index onboard the Ship.
You can find a Case study on one of the recent cases in our article below: Click Here
