In connection with the threat of COVID-19, an additional set of preventive health measures is being implemented at SUEK.
SUEK has established an emergency response centre to take actions aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19. The centre's tasks include ongoing monitoring of the epidemiological situation in the Company and timely sanitary and medical measures.
Today, over 430 people including employees and medical professionals of the Company, members of auxiliary mine rescue teams and external medical specialists are involved in anti-epidemic activities.
SUEK has introduced new regulations, envisaging that all corporate industrial and administrative facilities have intensified disinfection. Buildings are disinfected three times a day, in 4-hour intervals. Insidepremises are subject to sanitation every two hours. The procedure of disinfection and observance of the disinfection schedule are regularly monitored for vehicles that transport employees. All company units have the necessary amount of disinfectants.
In order to stay prepared if the epidemiological situation gets worse, additional backpack sprayers have been purchased for disinfecting industrial premises and adjacent areas.
In crowded places such as job assignment offices, aid posts, canteens and rooms with more than five employees air disinfection installations have been placed and floor marking has been applied to ensure a safe distance is maintained. At the entrances to all premises, dispensers with skin antiseptic are available.
In addition to pre-shift, post-shift and intra-shift medical check-ups, sanitary posts have been introduced for the purposes of thermometry and hand disinfection. Medical staff is provided with disposable overalls. Other personnel use masks and antiseptics. The company reduced the number of work meetings, restricted third-party access to the area and cancelled business trips. All employees over 65 years of age and those with chronic diseases are now in self-isolation with wage maintenance; part of the staff works remotely. In this way, SUEK has reduced the number of people simultaneously staying in the workplace.
“Over the years, SUEK has been engaged in establishing a medical support system for miners, creating medical services and aid posts at all units,” said Vladimir Azev, Acting General Director of SUEK-Khakassia. “In this difficult situation, we see that all these steps were really forward-looking and justified. Today, the health of our employees is protected by highly qualified professionals who, together with colleagues from other services, every day implement a wide range of measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus infection. We will continue this work as long as necessary,” he added.
In the context of increased readiness for the fight against the spread of the virus, SUEK, along with caring for the health of employees, supports healthcare institutions in the regions of operation, in close cooperation with regional administrations. In particular, in early April, SUEK purchased and donated to the Krasnoyarsk Interdistrict Emergency Clinical Hospital two up-to-date mobile digital x-ray machines made by Matrix (Italy). Chernogorsk Interdistrict Hospital received 500 respirators and 200 goggles. The company donated 1,000 medical respirator masks, disinfectant, saline bottles and disposable medical overalls to Leninsk-Kuznetsk Infectious Diseases Hospital. The Infectious Diseases Department of Prokopyevsk City Hospital No. 1 received another 1,000 medical respirator masks, together with components intended to force the mixture of oxygen and compressed air into the lungs.
