Medical evacuations among offshore oil and gas industries in the Gulf of Thailand.

BACKGROUND: Medical evacuation in the offshore oil and gas industry is costly and risky. Previous studies have found that the main cause of medical evacuation due to illness is increasing. In Thailand, there have been no studies on the causes and costs of medical evacuation in the offshore oil and gas industry. This study aims to study on the causes and costs of medical evacuation among offshore oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Thailand. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective review of data of medical evacuation among the offshore oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Thailand from 2016 to 2019 for a period of 36 months. RESULTS: During the research period, a total of 416 cases were evacuated. The majority of the causes of Medevac (84.13%) were illness. We found that 60.1% of all Medevacs were unpreventable or difficult to prevent, and only 39.9% were preventable. The cost of Medevac ranged from 10,000 to 880,000 THB per case. The cost of Medevac occurring from preventable causes was 17,160,000 THB for this period of 36 months. CONCLUSIONS: Reducing the cost of Medevac can be done by: 1) vaccination to prevent vaccine-preventable diseases, 2) screening to prevent people at risk of getting complications from pre-existing diseases to work offshore, and 3) increasing treatment capability of offshore facilities. Offshore oil and gas industry may consider cost-benefit of these approaches compared to status quo.

Thai physicians health survey.

Physicians often conduct research on other occupations' health or general populations' health, but their health has hardly been studied systematically. The authors conducted a cross-sectional descriptive survey on 440 physicians systematically selected from their medical license numbers. The response rate was 86.4% (380 out of 440). Two-hundred and twenty-nine were male, and 151 were female. Their average age was 40.8 years (range: 22-74). Most of them were Buddhists (93.9%), specialists (64.2%), married only once and still lived with their spouses (59.5%), and concurrently practiced medicine (95.5%). Their overall satisfaction as physicians was 60.2% high, and 37.2% moderate. Their average sleep time was 6-8 hours per night for 58.9%. Most had eye problems (74.9%) and most were refractive errors such as myopia. Most (63.8%) of them did not have any prevalent diseases. Whereas those who had diseases had (in order) allergy, hypertension, asthma, diabetes, and cancer. Their current illnesses included respiratory tract infection. Most physicians did not smoke (94.2%) nor drink alcohol (70.5%). Most of them were not vegetarians (60.4%), did not eat fast food (99.2%). Interestingly, 41.4% of them were accounted for spending less than twice per week for exercise. As expected, 23.7% of them were exposed to blood, 14.5% to respiratory tract secretion, and 13.7% to pus/secretion from wounds. This study serves as a basis for health promotion approach to medical community and does create awareness of health among Thai physicians.