Speaking about the launch of the Maritime Healthcare Plan, Susan Landers, Head of Marketing and Client Management at Allianz Worldwide Care said: “The convention addresses a number of basic employment rights, amongst them fair employment terms and the right to health protection and medical care. Essentially, the goal is to ensure that seafarers are provided with a minimum standard of working conditions”.
“Allianz Worldwide Care took a pro-active approach to create a healthcare plan which addresses all of the MLC 2006 mandatory in-patient and out-patient medical requirements, as well as offering a number of optional in-patient, out-patient, dental and repatriation benefits. This allows employers to provide a higher level of healthcare cover and a more attractive employee benefit in this competitive industry where there is a scarcity of qualified and experienced maritime staff”.
Landers added: “The MLC is already in force in many countries including Cyprus, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden, where shipping companies are obligated to provide a minimum level of health protection and medical care to employees. Maritime companies in other countries such as the UK, France, Germany and Belgium can make provisions now as their markets prepare for the implementation of the Convention in 2014”.