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When we land on the ground for a new program, we often don't know what challenges we're going to face. The medical needs assessments are meant to help you:
Discover what hospitals or health clinics are nearby and what services they offer
Understand potential health concerns on your base and work sites
Use this information to implement "controls" to prevent injury (i.e. wear harnesses when working from height...) and to create contingency plans in case of a medical emergency (i.e. Nora needs stitches, what do we do?)
STep 1:
STep 1:
Health care facility assessment
Health care facility assessment
The Health Care Facility Assessment will guide you through the process of identifying what services hospitals and clinics near you offer. Knowing this information is important because it will help you understand which injuries/illnesses can be treated at this facility, and which ones can't. This way, you will know if you need to make a plan for getting sick/injured volunteers to a more advanced hospital farther away.
There are two versions of the form to choose from. One is a Google Doc and is a print-friendly version for a single facility. The other is a Google Sheets format that is useful for comparing multiple facilities.
Step 2:
Step 2:
Medical risk assessments
Medical risk assessments
(Base & Work Sites)
(Base & Work Sites)
The Medical Risk Assessments will help you know what the biggest risks for injury and illness are on your program so that you can make plans and implement control measures to decrease these risks.
Separate assessments should be completed for the Base and for each Work Site (because you're probably not worried about being cut by a circular saw in your tent, or burning your hand on a pot at the work site...).
Also, because the nature of work can shift drastically, the Work Site risk assessment should be updated before the start of each new Project Phase.
Guide to doing a Medical risk assessment
Guide to doing a Medical risk assessment
Check out this guide for help with completing your medical risk assessment form. It describes common causes of the medical conditions listed on the assessment form to help you decide how likely that condition is to happen on your program.
For example, the most common cause of "submersion incidents" (i.e. drowning) is being underwater for too long. So, if you have a river/lake nearby, the risk is higher than if you are working in a desert with no water nearby...
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