The
Secretary also reported that the new layout of the EDTC
Internet page has been completed and is now live. The
members are invited to review the website and pass any
comments that they may have to the Secretary.
Design and
update of the website have been carried out by Dr. Akin
Toklu and the Secretary asked the members to join him in
congratulation Dr Toklu with an excellent job.
6
EDTC WORKSHOP 2010
See Chairman Report
7
CHAIRMAN’S REPORT
The Chairman reported that
he have now received diving regulations from some 14 member
countries, but are still missing some. Members representing
countries that still have not submitted their regulations
are invited to do so to the Chairman or the Secretary (or
both).
He also advised that
attempt to have a meeting with Mrs. Angelilli of the
European Union with regards to the planned EDTC conference
had not been successful to date, but that a meeting had now
been arranged for October 29th in Rome. (Post
meeting note: Meeting held November 5th attended
by Claus Mayer, Pasquale Longobardi, Esentato Giovanni and
OC Andersen. A favourable response was received but a
follow-up meeting is probably necessary in order to make
detailed arrangements).
The plan is consequently
still on for a conference late in 2011 in Brussels. The main
focus of the conference will be free movement of diving
personnel across Europe with particular emphasis on training
and certification requirements.
8
REPORT FROM THE CHAIRMAN
OF THE MEDICAL SUBCOMMITTEE
The Medical Subcommittee
of the EDTC have had no meeting since the last EDTC meeting.
In one week however most of the doctors will participate in
the European Underwater and Hyperbaric Medicine Congress in
Istanbul and we will have a meeting there. However there is
some progress that might be the key for a later consensus
and revised educational standards.
As reported in the last
time; the ECHM (European Committee for Hyperbaric Medicine)
has appointed a Task Force Group in order to study the
actual situation and this Task Force has designated
Professor David Elliott, who volunteered, to write down the
training objectives for a diving Medical Advisor in more
detail than what we had in the last written standards. This
work has been finished and the comments from all sides are
very positive, so that we will probably obtain a consensus
about that. It is very important for the whole EDTC-group to
know the educational profile of a future diving Medical
Advisor. As soon as the group has studied the details they
will communicate this to the EDTC members.
As our aim is free
movement of diving medical advisors and mutual recognition
between the European countries, a standardised and credible
final assessment is necessary. This is one of the points we
are actually discussing and it seems that the so-called
"Pisa-Initiative", will bring us a possibility to do a
web-based assessment in various countries but with the same
pool of questions and the same criteria for pass or fail.
The Pisa-Initiative has previously been sent to all the EDTC-members.
It is a plan in order to coordinate the education in diving
medicine world-wide, including South-Africa, America,
Australia and South East Asia, where a great part of
offshore diving work is performed.
We are also aware that to
get some practical experience and skills in diving medicine
is not easy as long as a young doctor is a trainee.
Therefore on the job learning like in a hospital will not be
easily achievable and we are looking forward to have a
practical skill module offered by the Marseille University
and INPP, the French National Diving Training School,
coordinated by Dr. Marc Borgnetta, the French Medical
Delegate. This will enable doctors to obtain trained in
decision making with simulated cases and on-site in real
heavy diving equipment and together with professionals.
9
REPORT FROM THE NATIONAL
REGULATIONS PROJECT
10
NATIONAL REPORTS
Please note that some of
the presentations referred to below have been attached to
this Minute.
a)
Austria (Roswitha Prohaska)
Dr. Roswitha Prohaska –
President of Austrian Society for Diving and Hyperbaric
Medicine (ÖGTH) gave the following report on the current
situation with regards to working divers and compressed air
work:
ÖGTH has begun a close
cooperation with the Austrian Ministry of Labour in
certifying Diving Medical Advisors (for working divers and
compressed air workers) according to Austrian regulations.
The ministry has acknowledged ÖGTH´s competency in diving
and hyperbaric medicine education as national scientific
body.
For a governmental
certificate as “Advisor for working divers & recompressed
air workers” the Ministry of Labour requests:
·
Licence to
practise medicine in general,
·
Diploma
“Diving Medicine Physician – Level IIa” issued by ÖGTH
(Including actual
competency in emergency medicine),
·
Subspecialty
Occupational Medicine.
Based on this cooperation
ÖGTH organizes a Workshop in Vienna, 12./13.Nov. 2010,
with the topic “Work under Pressure” – concerning today’s
problems in professional diving and compressed air work with
participants from D, CH and A.
ÖGTH also have good
contact with the new Medical Director of Occupational
Medicine of University of Vienna, Prof. Dr. Jasminka
Godnic-Cvar. She is interested in cooperation with ÖGTH
concerning diving- and hyperbaric medicine.
Though the Ministry
Austria has now no financial and personal resources to join
the EDTC, Dr. Huber will be copied on all information about
EDTC from me, so she can give input from the Austrian
Government.
b)
Czech Republic (Pavel Macura)
Diving in the Czech Republic has come a long way since the
velvet revolution. Commercial diving was accepted in law as
an independent (free) business in 1989. Unfortunately many
divers and their Clients misconstrued this believing that
everyone could work under water even though commercial
diving was always classified as an activity with a risk in
the Czech Republic, and that consequently legal requirements
applied.
After a few serious
accidents and fatalities had occurred caused by lack of
professional training and inadequate equipment initiatives
were taken in 1993 to establish the Association of
Commercial Divers Czech Republic, of which Diving Station CR
was one of the founding members.
The goal of the
association was to establish training and safety standards
comparable or equal to other European countries in order to
improve legislation and prevent accidents.
The same year the Ministry
of Education CR gave accreditation to the association to
perform re-qualification training for DIVERS with the
association of professional divers in charge of the
practical part of the training.
Approximately 4.500
working hours under water is registered annually with
personnel with many years of working experience in difficult
condition, low visibility and cold water.
According to new
government regulation, in which the Association of
Commercial Divers participated in developing, personnel
working under water need to be in good health and fully
qualified for the work. This puts pressure on those
companies employing personnel lacking such qualification,
but not all companies are interested in a quality
professional training.
It is with disappointment
that the Ministry of Education later accredited another
organisation to perform such re-qualification training, an
organisation with no qualification or experience in
commercial diving, nor equipment suitable for good quality
training. As a result, now two years later the marked is
facing persons offering diving services with qualifications
standard when it comes to theory and practice.
Members of the Association
of Commercial Divers are striving to increase safety and
protecting member from health hazards organising regular
training and emergency exercises. In the association’s
projects emphasis is made on environmental protection by
applying European Standards and a general increase of the
quality of services by implementation of quality management
system, safety at work and environmental protection.
The Association of
Commercial Divers main goals are to obtain acceptance of a
nationwide diver’s qualification standard with international
significance.
c)
Italy (Pasquale Longobardi)
Pasquale Longobardi gave a
presentation of the Italian CEN Norm No. UNI 11366
(available at: uni.com) issued in June 2010. The work to
develop the standard started in 2009 as reported on during
the Ravenna meeting and was performed by members from the
Italian diving industry under the auspices of UNI (Italian
Standards Institute). The standard will be presented to the
EU with a request for making it an International Standard.
The UNI Standard is 99% common to the EDFTC, IMCA and the
United Kingdom HSE standards. A briefing note about UNI,
including a list of content of the standard has been
appended to this minute.
National committees will,
if the request is accepted and in due course be invited to
participate in any such activities and that interested
members should apply to their national Standards Committee
for participation.
It was pointed out by
several of the members that appropriate representation at
the national Standards Committee could be a problem as many
of the positions were already held by equipment
manufacturers or representatives from institutions not
particularly well connected with the diving contractors
d)
Portugal (Carlos Barossa)
Portuguese professional diving national regulations are
based on a law from January 1994.
There
are now five Hyperbaric Services Centres with six Chambers
in the country, but only two of them are officially
recognised for dealing with professional divers. None of
these have doctors with the speciality of Occupational
Medicine employed, and only in one have doctors with
knowledge off, and diving experience. However, there are
doctors with both specialities available in Portugal
(occupational medicine and diving and hyperbaric medicine).
In
the last years attempts have been made to change the law in
order to develop new diving regulations corresponding to the
EDTC proposals. This resulted in the Portuguese government
issuing instructions for the Portuguese Navy to propose a
new law compatible with international regulations.
At
that time, by recommendation of National Maritime Authority,
the Navy Hospital and its HBO Service had to listen to my
proposals before and during the elaboration of the new law,
just to follow the EDTC proposals. However, nothing has
happened yet.
There
is presently no Portuguese Government Representative on the
EDTC Committee, and I am afraid that the new law may not be
in accordance with the EDTC Standard because the law will be
developed exclusively by Portuguese Navy personnel. .
e)
Slovac Republic (Frantisek
Novomesky)
Presentation withdrawn as
the presenter’s flight was cancelled.
f)
Sweden (Jorn Ryberg)
Jorn Ryberg advised that
1993 Swedish HSE Rules are now out for referral. Changes are:
·
Better
harmonisation with EU legislation,
·
The new
rules are based on functional requirements instead of
detailed requirements.
The new rules are expected
to be finalised by the end of 2010.
He also reported that the
Swedish Association of Diving Contractors (DIB) has status
as a referral group for the Swedish Work Environment
Authority. The aim of the association is to bring down
overall hazards at work.
There have been no fatal
occupational diving accidents in Sweden for many years, but
he reported the death of a Swedish diver while performing
work in German waters (related to installation of wind
turbines).
Jorn went on to ask the
question: Free movement (of divers) in Europe, a dream only
and suggested that a work group be established with the aim
and objective to bring overall harmonisation further. He
suggested that Norway should take leadership of this work
group.
It was pointed out that
this is in line with the current regulation working group
and that further actions on the subject could only be
decided after the meeting with Mrs. Angelilli.
g)
Switzerland (Jurg Wendling)
Jurg Wendling reported on
a case where a Swiss diver had received a medical
examination by himself and went to Italy to work (in 2009).
On arrival in Italy his medical examination was not
recognised by the Italians. The case was solved with
assistance from Pasquale Longobardi making a statement that
the medical examination had been performed by an EDTC
qualified doctor. Since then there as not been any similar
problems.
h)
Turkey (Murat Egi)
Murat Egi reported on the
imitative by the Turkish Maritime Chamber of Commerce,
Underwater Contractors and the University of Galatasaray for
an initiative in lifelong education for divers and diving
personnel all based on a survey conducted in March 2010.
Consideration is being evaluated for a credit based training
system regulated by the Turkish Chamber of Commerce.
Focus for the system will
be frequent seminars and priority focuses on:
·
Health and
Safety,
·
Emergency
Management and
·
Emerging
Technologies.
He also announced that a
Turkish company has won a contract under the EU Eureka
program for development of “Topside Probabilistic Dive
Computer” providing leading indicators on commercial diving
risks. This program is being run in cooperation with
Norwegian partner DeepX (under support by Innovation Norge)
and with service and consultancy provided by DAN Europe,
Haut Ecole Henry Spaak (Belgium). The project is still
seeking further partners. Additional information can be
obtained from the EUREKA website:
http://www.eurekanetwork.org/project/-/id/5413.
Turkey (Akin Savas
Toklu)
Akin Savas Toklu advised
that Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine (DHM) is a speciality
education approved by the Turkish Health Minister in 1989
and that a new law was issued in July 2009 specifying a 3
year training for becoming a DHM. The training includes
rotation through departments of anaesthesia and reanimation,
chest disease, chest surgery, endocrinology, metabolism
(diabetes) and infectious diseases. The residents will also
receive diving training during their specialisation.
Currently Turkey have 35
specialist practicing in DHM, 6 of which works as lecturer
in universities. There are also 10 resident specialists in
DHM.
Turkish law requires the
managers of any private Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment (HBO) to
be a DHM. In Turkey there are currently 17 private HBO
centres and a further 10 centres owned and operated by
universities, the Health Ministry or the Turkish Navy. For
location of these please refer to the attached power point
presentation.
i)
United Kingdom (Chris
Sherman)
Chris Sherman advised that
the economic situation is affecting all sectors in the UK,
but that the following development is emerging:
·
Training
schools are busy, but training is slowing down,
·
New build
DSVs are now entering the market,
·
That there
is an aging infrastructure (& personnel),
·
Offshore
wind farm construction is active,
·
There are
public spending cuts.
He also advised of the
following fatal accidents in the UK involving diving
personnel:
·
Offshore –
Technician crushed by cursor while loosening bolts on top of
bell (not recorded by HSE as a diving fatality, but included
here as it is diving-related),
·
Inshore –
Diver collapsed preparing to leave water after routine dive.
Cause of death not yet established,
·
2
Recreational “at work” Scuba deaths.
Note: Investigations
are ongoing into all 4 cases
He then continued by
giving an update on Diver Training (attached) and advised of
a serious incident where a diver was hospitalised with sever
respiratory symptoms. This was identified as caused by
fungus in his BCD. He also advised that DVIS 12 gives
guidance on effective cleaning routines for such.
HSE Research Report 761
has been issued (Differential Pressure hazards).
DVIS 13 has been issued
giving guidance on identifying hazards and reducing risks.
Further information is
available as follows:
Diving Information Sheets
(DVIS):
www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/dveindx.htm
Research Reports:
www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrhtm/index.htm
j)
IMCA (Jane Bugler)
Jane Bugler gave the
following updates:
New IMCA Guidance
issued since last meeting:
·
IMCA D044 –
Guidance on isolation and intervention: Diver access to
Subsea Systems,
·
Info note on
the control of bell blow-down facility during saturation
diving,
·
Info note on
the periodic inspection of diver harnesses
The following IMCA
Guidance is being updated:
·
DSAA –
guidance on Diving systems assurance audit (D011 being
finalised),
·
DESIGN -D023
& D024 being updated and being finalised,
·
Diving
supervisors manual (IMCA D022) – being finalised,
·
IMCA D045 -
Safe use of electricity underwater (AODC 035) – document at
printers. Updated and extended to cover wider range of
applications,
·
Acrylic
plastic viewports – updated document being finalised,
·
Min
quantities of gas required offshore (AODC 014) – breathing
rates,
·
NURGOD (IMCA
034) – being updated to reflect NORSOK changes,
·
Oxy arc
cutting operations – changing to underwater thermal cutting
operations and include information on ‘swordfish’. Draft
under review,
·
High water
jetting (AODC 049)
The following new
guidance documents are being developed:
·
Guidance on
hyperbaric evacuation systems,
·
Guidance for
PLC based diving systems – supplement to D024.
She also advised that
Diving Supervisor Scheme have been mutually recognised by:
·
ADAS - to be
extended to LSTs,
·
DCBC –
extended to bell diving supervisors,
·
South Africa
DOL – new regulations now ready. MOU being finalised.
And that trial of process
for monitoring diver’s long term health is being run,
including:
·
Collection
of exposure data,
·
Medical
questionnaire.
Other work performed by
IMCA includes:
·
Review of
competence tables for all diving personnel to include tasks,
·
Survey of
number of divers working in each geographical region –
information note issued,
·
Review of
diver medic course syllabus,
·
Possible
guidance on diving in temperature extremes – information
from AP workshop to be used,
·
Guidance to
marine contractors re undertaking diving operations on their
vessels,
·
Guidance on
the use of simulators in training and competence,
·
That a
Database for Common Marine Inspection Documents (CMID) has
been established and is available to member on internet
under the following address:
www.imcacmid.com
She also advised that the
IMCA Annual Marine & Diving Seminar 2010 would take place,
2010, Dubai, 23-24 November 2010 and that information’s is
available under:
www.imca-int.com/events
k)
IDSA (Alan Bax)
IDSA is concerned with all
divers, Inland, Inshore and Offshore, although we should
remember that because of publicity & the vast amounts of
money involved, offshore operations often overshadow all
others and give a wrong impression of the mainstream
inland/inshore activities which predominate in Europe, as in
many other countries, and where there is a great deal of
hard work and very much less money.
The vast majority of
divers work inshore and provide the base of the pyramid
which breeds the divers who later work offshore. Inshore
activities provide divers with a wide variety of work
experience which would be difficult if not impossible to
gain offshore. It is therefore important for the Offshore
Industry that inshore training is safe and of the highest
quality.
To put this into
perspective: There are only 3 schools in Europe running
closed bell courses as opposed to well in excess of 25
running commercial SCUBA & surface supplied inshore and
offshore courses - the exact number is difficult to obtain
as not all countries have National Diver Training
Programmes.
In order to progress the
provision of a consistent quality of diver training, IDSA
has created International Diver Training Standards from the
consensus view of its member schools. These standards which
fit with the broad goal setting standards of EDTC – provide
the meat for the EDTC skeleton. Their adoption is gradually
increasing, and their geographical spread is growing. We
have been pleased this year to welcome a very well equipped
school from India as a full member, and several other
applications are being processed.
However, the association
is not just concerned with standards; it also serves as a
valuable forum for the interchange of news & views between
members, many of whom are the only commercial school in
their country. Current routes for this interchange are the
newsletter - published in January and July, the IDSA
Website, and the annual meeting in September/October.
The next annual meeting of
IDSA will be held in Rotterdam October 13 to 15 and will be
hosted by the world famous salvage company now known simply
as ‘SMIT’. To fit in with modern trends we are proposing to
discuss in detail a major change to the membership
structure, which will make a distinction between full member
schools that are offshore training schools, that is, those
teaching IDSA Levels 3 & 4, and inshore training schools
teaching Levels 1 & 2. We are also planning to review and
update the work skills and methods of assessment contained
in the IDSA Diver Training Standards.
Finally, we would be very
pleased indeed to welcome members of EDTC, to our annual
meeting, as IDSA considers that its programmes provide a
simple solution for implementing the European Directive on
the recognition of professional qualifications.
l)
International Diving
Regulators Forum (IDRF)
IDRF is a voluntary group
of diving regulators and certifying agencies. Members
include Australia, Canada, France, Norway, South Africa and
United Kingdom. IDRF is a Corresponding member of EDTC.
Members have agreed to
work together toward mutual recognition and to identify and
implement best practices in diver training with the object
of harmonizing cross border diver training standards outside
Europe.
How do IDRF work?
Country reports; this is
how we discover and discuss best practices.
Each member reported on
training and certification activity in their country and
reported on accidents and incidents in their respective
commercial diving industries.
Current issues discussed
in the IDRF Meeting:
·
Quality
control of training in South Africa,
·
Presentation
of the ADAS simulator for the training of supervisors,
·
Observation
that the OGP diving sub- committee seems to be restricting
attendance at their meetings to producers and diving
contractors; IDRF members no longer attend,
·
Members
reported on their continued interaction with IMCA; ADAS &
DCBC are working with IMCA to develop a common database of
questions for supervisor exams and SA is working towards
IMCA acceptance of their supervisor training courses,
·
There was a
brief discussion on the development of a competency standard
of nitrox supervisors; DCBC will share their current
standard with other members,
·
There was an
extensive discussion on mutual recognition issues caused
mainly by the different bottom time requirements for
training of ADAS, DCBC & HSE,
·
Members
agreed to publicize these differences openly so that
prospective students would recognize the differences and
understand their impact,
·
Members also
discussed the accreditation of training outside the national
jurisdiction of the accrediting agency and possible issues
relating to quality control,
·
Members
agreed to consider the impact of these activities and to
continue the discussions at our next meeting,
·
Members
discussed the issues arising from delivering certificates to
divers who are trained in languages other than English,
·
ADAS is
unique in identifying the language of training on the
certificate,
·
Other
members agreed to continue issuing certificates without the
language of training notation.
Paul Butler of ADAS has
volunteered to take over the duties of coordinator of IDRF
for at least the next two years.
The next IDRF meeting will
take place in Marseille, France in September 2011 in
conjunction with the EDTC meeting.
IDRF drew attention to a
diver certificate issued by a Moroccan Diving School which
with assistance from INPP had provided training for trainee
divers. The Moroccan school had subsequently issued training
certificates “Calsse 2A” which is similar to the French
“Classe 2A” and thus may be confused with the French
certificate. The French Authorities however does not
recognise the Moroccan certificate as it is delivered in
only 5/6 weeks which is deemed too short for the trainees to
obtains sufficient qualification and experience.
11
ELECTIONS
No nominations for the two
positions on the EDTC Board due for election had been
received, and as the present member (Jane Bugler and
Pasquale Longobardi) had both agreed to continue on the
Board their reappointment was confirmed by the members.
12
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
There were no discussion
under and other business.
13
NEXT MEETING
The French delegation
advised that they would be hosting the next EDTC meeting, to
be held in Marseille, France on September 16th
2011.
