by Lloyd's List

20 December 2024 (Lloyd's List) - HIGH-SPEED internet is increasingly available on board merchant vessels, but spending long periods away from family can still be a big challenge for those choosing a long-term career at sea, and for the families of seafarers.

As competition for personnel to crew the deepsea vessel fleet has intensified, more shipowners have become aware of the need to support not only their seafarers on board but also their vessel crew's families ashore.

Charles Watkins, chief executive and clinical psychologist at Mental Health Support Solutions, a division of leading maritime healthcare provider OneCare Group, says services for families of seafarers are evolving for the better. 

OneCare was founded in 2022 and is deployed by P&I clubs, shipowners and shipmanagers to improve seafarers’ health, training and well-being via three subsidiaries that employ specialists in general healthcare and mental health. Its clients operate a fleet of 5,000 vessels across most vessel segments.

Previously, in cases that involved support provided to a wife to deal with trauma following a husband’s death at sea, little consideration was provided to the children of seafarers following the death of a father.  

MHSS has recently deployed a consultant psychologist for Filipino seafarers at its base in Manila who specialises in child therapy and child counselling. Watkins said that it plans to widen mental health services to support seafarers’ children to other major seafarer supply centres, including India and Europe.

Consultant psychologist Faye Egargo told Lloyd’s List about a recent case she worked on.

“We had a chief officer at sea who’s primary concern was the poor behaviour of his son at school. The child also had difficulty in sleeping and concentrating,” said Egargo.

“The seafarer contacted his wife who contacted me and we met at our centre in Manila. I provided an initial evaluation and then conducted therapy sessions with the child using play therapy. From this I was able to diagnose that the child had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.”

Egargo said that the, treatable, diagnosis provided relief to the child’s parents since they had convinced themselves, incorrectly, that their son had a far more serious mental condition.

“In Filipino society there remains a huge stigma about mental health whereby any condition is often associated with a severe psychotic disorder, especially schizophrenia,” said Egargo.

She highlighted another recent, more tragic, case involving the suicide of a seafarer and which caused severe distress for his direct family and extended family.

“We provided grief counselling for not only the seafarers’ direct family but also his extended family. In the past, Filipino families were less open to the idea of seeking support,” noted Egargo.

Therapy sessions can be undertaken online

She said that therapy sessions are usually conducted at MHSS’s facility in Manila, but can also be undertaken online for those family’s that live a long distance from the Philippines capital. 

“In the past it was very difficult for families to get support but more seafarers are being covered by support schemes paid for by their ship’s owners,” said Egargo.

Younger children are usually served by Egargo utilising play therapy, which aims to encourage children to express their feelings and how to cope with negative emotions and stress, in particular for dealing with their parent’s long periods away at sea.

Understanding the emotional impact of separation from a father is important, and Egargo teaches children how to handle separation.

“It can be very difficult to leave the family to go to sea for nine months; there can be pain involved in separation,” said MHSS chief executive Watkins. 

Separations of up to a year, due to the long contracts typically required of Filipino ratings serving on ships, can also induce homesickness in seafarers which can lead to poor physical health, said Watkins.

Absence during Christmas holidays, an important event for many Filipinos, can also trigger negative feelings for seafarers and their families.

Watkins noted that while the arrival of high-speed internet on ships can be positive in easing separation, with some seafarers able to call their families every day, if there are difficulties at home then the seafarer can be caught in the middle of it, but remotely. 

“The internet has changed the climate on board ships. After your watch you have the ability to talk to your family but this can mean there is less socialising on board.” 

He has noted wide differences between shipowners in how much internet time a seafarer can have on board a vessel.

“Internet availability should be standardised across all ships. We shouldn’t treat seafarers any differently to land-based employees. Some have full access to connect whenever they need to but others don’t,” said Watkins.

He also believes that some seafarer employment contracts for ratings, of up to 12 months, are far too long in the modern age. 

“We don’t see any movement in the shortening of contracts. For those that have children it would be nice to see a change in reducing the length of their contracts but we don’t see that coming yet,” noted Watkins.