Shipping has been accused of covering up the numbers of suicides at sea with urgent calls to be more transparent about one of the sector’s darkest secrets.
Charity Seafarers UK, while noting an uptick in suicides as a result of the protracted time onboard during the Covid-19 crisis, has hit out at shipping’s lack of a reliable source of information about the scale of this tragedy.
Seafarers UK’s CEO Catherine Spencer commented in a release: “I have been astonished to discover that there is no single source of data on how many seafarers have taken their own lives during the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, alarmingly, it appears no one has been or is keeping an accurate global record of seafarer suicides.
“This may be because suicides do not result in claims handled by the P&I Clubs that provide insurance for most merchant shipowners. But that picture also is unclear, as some suicides at sea may be being recorded erroneously as fatal accidents. Unless we know the true extent of the problem, how can we target our support for seafarers and those working on the frontline to support seafarers’ welfare?”
Splash lead columnist Andrew Craig-Bennett commented on the issue recently, noting that seafarers’ terms of employment are normally written so as to exclude the payment of a death in service benefit in the event of suicide. It is commonplace for suicide to be recorded as accidental death.
Source: Splash247 (Click for further of the article)
Charity Seafarers UK, while noting an uptick in suicides as a result of the protracted time onboard during the Covid-19 crisis, has hit out at shipping’s lack of a reliable source of information about the scale of this tragedy.
Seafarers UK’s CEO Catherine Spencer commented in a release: “I have been astonished to discover that there is no single source of data on how many seafarers have taken their own lives during the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, alarmingly, it appears no one has been or is keeping an accurate global record of seafarer suicides.
“This may be because suicides do not result in claims handled by the P&I Clubs that provide insurance for most merchant shipowners. But that picture also is unclear, as some suicides at sea may be being recorded erroneously as fatal accidents. Unless we know the true extent of the problem, how can we target our support for seafarers and those working on the frontline to support seafarers’ welfare?”
Splash lead columnist Andrew Craig-Bennett commented on the issue recently, noting that seafarers’ terms of employment are normally written so as to exclude the payment of a death in service benefit in the event of suicide. It is commonplace for suicide to be recorded as accidental death.
Source: Splash247 (Click for further of the article)