Military Sealift Command Looks to Keep the Fleet “Fit and Ready”

Photo By Hendrick Dickson | NORFOLK, VA (July 26, 2022) Military Sealift Command (MSC) East Health Promotion Coordinator Leighanne Gerstbrein observes as Civil Service Mariner (CIVMAR) Mark Appel takes an in-body screening during MSC's East Coast Wellness Day hosted by the Health Promotion Program July 26 in Norfolk, Virginia. MSC held the event to offer CIVMARs tools to help them improve their individual health. (Photo by Hendrick Dickson/Released).  

NORFOLK, VA, UNITED STATES

06.08.2023

Story by Hendrick Dickson 

USN Military Sealift Command

Civil Service Mariners (CIVMARs) are the key to Military Sealift Command’s (MSC) success. Nearly 6,000 CIVMARs keep MSC ships mission ready. Whether they work in the engine room, galley or pilot house, each and every one is invaluable and the reason MSC is able to provide continuous support to the joint warfighters.

One of the critical elements of maintaining readiness is keeping CIVMARs fit for duty. The health of the fleet has a direct impact on the ability to get ships underway. Promoting health and safety while improving fit-for-duty status is a priority for MSC’s Medical Force.

“From a readiness perspective, non-fit-for-duty (NFFD) statuses hurt our ability to get CIVMARs relieved on time,” said MSC Pacific Medical Officer, Cmdr. Jamie Vega. “The more CIVMARs we have who are not fit for duty, the more people we have out there on ships who can’t get relieved.”

Vega says the command has 375 NFFD cases, and about 122 of them have lasted beyond six months. The causes range from hypertension to sleep apnea and the most common, musculoskeletal issues, such as neck pain, shoulder pain, knee pain and other joint-related injuries.

“Currently our NFFD status is about 6.4 percent of our basic allowance,” said Vega. “What we’d like to do is to get that number down to 2.5 percent which is a lofty and ambitious goal, but we can do it in a number of ways.”

Vega says one of the ways is to establish a consistent line of communication between medical and the CIVMARs that includes routine chart reviews, better case management and working with the CIVMARs to ensure they are meeting their appointments and staying medically compliant.

“It is a team effort with the mariner and medical staff,” said Vega. “It is incumbent upon the CIVMAR to provide their medical documents to us so we can review them. And important also that they provide updates routinely so that we will know what we can do to help end their non-fit-for-duty status or if we need to extend them.”

Establishing better dialogue between medical staff and CIVMARs is one approach toward getting current NFFD cases down, but Vega believes MSC already has programs in place that can preempt cases beforehand. MSC’s Force Safety and Health and Promotions Programs are tools that MSC staff and CIVMARs can engage with that will help their own health and fitness while keeping MSC mission ready.

MSC’s Force Safety Focuses on Creating Safe Work Environments

MSC’s Safety and Occupational Health (MSOH) Program promotes safe and healthy working conditions for personnel in order to enhance operational readiness. The program aims to reduce occupational injuries, illnesses or deaths and material loss or damage through awareness.

“Safety has a direct correlation with readiness,” said Safety and Occupational Health Manager Scott Muller. “You can look at our program two ways. One is preventive or being proactive and in front of the issues by looking ahead. Then we are also, from time to time, reactive. When things do happen, we collect information and create a mishap report that documents the incident, either damage to equipment or injury to the person, and we use what we learn to raise awareness.”

The safety program’s hallmark is sharing information with the MSC staff and CIVMARs with the hope that it can prevent future incidents. They produce quarterly newsletters discussing the latest safety trends and policies and how they are impacting maritime safety.

“Learning from past instances and being better aware and prepared for future activities and implementing protective actions or risk assessments are all important factors in creating and maintaining a safe work environment,” said Muller.

Muller added that it is important that CIVMARs be willing to share information when mishaps happen. Obtaining mishap reports from ships is vital to safety promotion, including near miss and hazard reports. By Navy policy, MSC can only use reported information for safety purposes only and it cannot be used for enforcement action, we maintain confidentiality and do not share reported information with the U.S. Coast Guard. It is invaluable that

According to Force Medical, musculoskeletal injuries that make up 33 percent of the NFFD cases can be attributed to the way people lift things, move things around or even sit at their desks. MSOH also promotes the ergonomics training that shows employees how to establish and maintain a safe and comfortable work environment that could help suppress injuries.

“Ergonomics is really the study and the optimization of fitting the workspace to the worker. To make it comfortable so that work can be more efficient. Like arranging chairs and desks to be conducive for the worker,” said Muller. “Making adjustments to the work environment can help prevent chronic conditions for the individuals in the long term.”

An article in one of MSOH’s recent quarterly newsletters, discussed the link between fit for duty and safety. Fit for duty is defined as a combination of physical and mental factors that enable people to carry out their jobs competently and safely. The article listed the main causes of degraded fitness for duty and how safety if affected:

Fit for Duty Causes:
 Misuse of alcohol and or drugs.
 Physical injury.
 Illness.
 Stress, worry, personal problems.
 Mental impairment.

Safety is affected through:
 Inability to concentrate.
 Confusion.
 Degraded situational awareness.
 Being distracted by feeling unwell.
 Poor physical coordination.
 Falling asleep.
 Communication failures.

Muller emphasizes that safety isn’t about one individual or one office. Its impact on improving MSC’s fit-for-duty posture requires cultural change.

“Safety is everybody's responsibility,” he said. “We want to make a shift to where safety is embedded in our overarching mission. We are sharing literature, lessons learned and knowledge so that safety will be in play every day to prevent incidents and keep people healthy.”

MSC employees can get the latest Safety newsletter and more information on MSC’s portal at https://navy.deps.mil/sites/msc/Pages/MSCSafety.aspx.

MSC Health and Promotions Program Offers Tools for Healthy Living

MSC’s Health and Promotions Program (HPP) gives MSC staff and mariners the tools improve their individual help and puts them right at their fingertips. HPP’s mission is to improve the health consciousness and health status of MSC employees in order to increase operational effectiveness, efficiency and safety, and the programs offer numerous services that can help non-fit duty members return to their ships.

“CIVMARs have a variety of free services and taking advantage of these services will not only enhance their physical and mental well-being, but when they do take advantage, it tends to ripple down into all areas of lives, from enhancing their relationships with others to improving both their quality of work and quality of life,” said MSC Health Promotion Coordinator Leighanne Gerstbrein.

HPP’s virtual classes are online and tailored toward encouraging healthy routines such as effective dieting, working out and managing mental health:

 Virtual Health Education Classes offer a new class monthly on a variety of topics such as, Meal Planning; Weight Management; Exercise Basics and more. (link: www.millenniumenterprises.net/civmar-classes/)
 Virtual Fitness Classes, also monthly, focus on fitness workouts such as, 10-minute Ab Workout; 20-minute Full Body Workout; TurboKick and others. (link: www.millenniumenterprises.net/civmar-class-type/classes/fitness/)
 Virtual Meditation Classes are mind and body practices that promote calmness and physical relaxation, improved psychological balance, coping with illnesses, and enhancing overall health and well-being. Available classes include: Introduction to Mindful Meditation; Gratitude Meditation; Labeling Thoughts Meditation. (link: www.millenniumenterprises.net/civmar-class-type/classes/meditation/)

HPP also has scheduled events and informative tools available for CIVMARs on the East and West Coasts. These include newsletters that are routinely distributed to the fleet:

 SHIP FIT Workouts are distributed quarterly to all Medical Service Officers, Medical Department Representatives and Masters and provide beginner, intermediate, and advanced level workouts for CIVMARs to do while underway. The workouts require no equipment and are intended to be able to be done anywhere, anytime.
 Weekly Wellness Newsletters are distributed to the fleet every Monday. Often, the topic is in accordance with the monthly health observance, however input from CIVMARs and health risk assessment findings also contribute to the topic selection and design of the newsletter.
 The MSC Resiliency Team which aims to build resilience and morale among the CIVMAR pulation to increase employee satisfaction and decrease employee burnout, stress and workplace conflict.
 Health Risk Assessments give CIVMARs the ability to create their own free wellness profile at www.mhfwellnessportal.com. This provides them with access to a variety of resources such as sleep, food, water, physical activity, and weight tracking and logging devices and feedback, mindfulness practices, recipes to try, interactive learning, daily pursuits, a health library, social blogs, and a free health risk assessment.
 Health Coaching is a collaborative process by which coach and client work together to bring out the best in the client and help the client create and live the life they want to live.

HPP recently launched a new Website that provides a “one-stop-shop” where CIVMARs could visit to learn about all of the HPP services and direct links to useful resources: https://civmar.sealiftcommand.com/health-promotion-program.

“Our health impacts everything we do,” Gerstbrein said. “We can’t neglect it if we want to live a full, rich life. Taking responsibility of it means taking responsibility of our lives and putting us in a powerful position to get the most from life.”

• Date Taken: 06.08.2023
• Date Posted: 06.08.2023 10:52
• Story ID: 446484
• Location: NORFOLK, VA, US