Vikramaditya & John Wilbert
Port Blair, June 03: On April 08, 2021 a seaman working onboard MV Bharat Seema (docked at Mumbai Port) died, while he was being shifted to Hospital. There were allegations that he died because of COVID-19 as many others onboard the ship reportedly had the same symptoms of fever and breathlessness.
At that point of time allegations were made against SCI and the officers onboard the ship for not testing and treating the crew members on time, which resulted in the death of the crew member.
Now it seems nothing has been learnt from this incident by the SCI as there are other ships of Andaman, berthed or are at anchorage in various Mainland India Ports, in which a huge number of crew members from Andaman are there.
As per allegations of family members no arrangements have been made for the vaccinations of these seafarers despite the fact that many of these crew members are above 45 and some have comorbidities too.
“While officers of SCI are taking vaccine shots, no arrangement has been made for vaccination of ship crew of Andaman and Nicobar Islands in mainland. They are also at risk because there are many ways in which infection might reach inside the ship and that may result in a disaster,” alleged a family member of one seafarer.
Meanwhile, it has been learnt that the National Union of Seafarers of India Port Blair branch have also taken up this issue prominently but till now no action has been taken for vaccinating all Andaman crew in Mainland Port.
As per details available here Mr. Dharvinder Ram Branch Representative National Union of Seafarers of India Port Blair branch on 28 April 2021 wrote a mail to the top officers of SCI and DSS in this regard.
In his letter Mr. Dharvinder Ram pointed out that there are vessels stationed at Mainland ports in Mumbai, Kochi and Kolkata and these Vessels are at anchorage and Seafarers have no access to get COVID 19 vaccination done.
He pointed out that Seafarer community of Andaman has lost 2 Seafarers due to pandemic whilst on onboard article recently.
He requested to treat Seafarers as key workers and make necessary arrangements for vaccination of Seafarers at Mainland ports as soon as possible.
Some family members told Andaman Sheekha that crew members of MV Dering, presently at Kolkata Port, must be given priority for vaccination as the transmission rate of COVID-19 in Kolkata is very high.
