COVID-19 & PHS
A letter from our Co-CEO’s around the current COVID-19 situation:
To All our valued Clients, Employees, Students and Contractors:
What extraordinary and challenging times that we are all currently living and working in!
We do hope that you and your respective families are well, and our thoughts are with those who are affected by Coronavirus and the latest restrictions seen across Victoria.
PHS Management responded immediately to the COVID-19 Pandemic and continue to be proactive and implement the necessary protocol to the ensure protection of all PHS employees, clients, students, and contractors alike. Part of this was the establishment of the PHS Action Committee' or "PAC".
Our PAC initially met daily and have been in communication daily with our staff on site, and at least weekly via Safety Memos and emails. All of our advice has been carefully based on the regularly updated communications from the Federal – “Department of Health” as well as the various State and Territory Government Health departments; we believe it is imperative that we are collectively aware and respectful of the latest guidance, ensuring the health of everyone and reducing risk for all our valued employees, clients, student and contractors.
Our PAC has also undertaken an in-depth COVID-19 ‘Business-wide Risk Assessment’ entitled “PAC 7-day Risk Projection”; this step was to ensure the Health and Safety of our people, but also our various lines of business; to maintain operations as close to normal as possible, and also preserve people’s jobs as far as possible! This process and document are dynamic, initially being re-assessed daily, and now twice a week as a minimum.
From the outset, PHS’s strategy, communication and consultation with all personnel has concentrated on:
Understanding COVID-19 and the associated risks,
Prevention steps against exposure to or contraction of the virus,
Action steps should the virus be suspected or detected within the vicinity of any of our staff or bases.
PHS’s Prevention and Actions have concentrated on:
Restricted Access to all PHS sites offices & ‘Temperature testing’ of all site visitors:
Prior to being permitted entry to the facility, all visitors and staff undergo triage questioning and temperature testing; those visitors providing inadequate responses or displaying a high temperature will not be permitted onto site.
Hand Sanitiser:
All staff, students & visitors upon entry to our buildings must use the provided hand sanitiser.
Social Distancing: Social distancing inside and outside work where practical, including segregation of all our critical staff teams; Separate pilot teams, Engineers, Office Staff (Refer below also),
Sanitisation of meeting/briefing rooms, appropriate touch points & common areas:
Prior to and after use all bench tops and other items such as keyboards, mouses etc at to be sanitised using disinfectant and wipes by the PHS staff member who utilised the room.
Sanitisation of Helicopters:
Prior to and post each flight, all touch points are wiped down with disinfectant.
Sanitisation of company vehicles and other communal tools of work:
Prior to and after utilisation of company vehicles or tool or work, all touch points are to be sanitised using disinfectant by the driver.
Face Masks:
Any staff member who is within 1.5 meters of another staff member, student or visitor to PHS must wear a protective face mask (Qld & NT) face masks are worn at all times by staff and visitors in Victorian facility’s and aircraft. Disposable gloves are also provided were handwashing not readily available (or as required).
Segregation of critical teams – Machines & Crew:
Critical teams’ machines and crew must undergo daily temperature testing, the aircraft is to be sanitised at the beginning of and end of the day. For machines left in publicly accessible areas an exclusion zone perimeter is to be erected around the machine each time it is stationary on the ground with ‘A’ Frame notice placed in a visual position to possible onlookers, no ‘show & tell’ of this machine and equipment is to take place until further notice. Equipment required to conduct the above is to be transported with the machine and or support vehicle.
Secondary sterile Helicopter prepared & on Stand-by:
In case of contamination of the primary machine, or requirement for a second helicopter, a secondary machine is held on Standby for all contracted machines.
Immediate self-isolation policies for all staff demonstrating symptoms or who have been in contact with any known infected person.
PHS is a long standing and professional aviation business operating in several specialised aviation fields (Pilot training, Tourism, Aerial work) and geographical locations across Australia.
As such, we aim to maintain full operations in all fields of our business, COVID regulations permitting, and return to full service as soon as possible to ensure we can fulfil Helicopter service needs.
More importantly, we aim to help keep you safe, in line with our priority: the health and safety of our clients and our teams.
As developments arise, we will continue to add to the many precautionary measures already in place across our operations and will respond quickly to each emerging situation as it occurs, to help ensure the health and safety of everyone involved.
If you have any questions, please contact us directly at [email protected]
The Team and PHS look forward to continuing to serve you.
Kind Regards,
John Orr-Campbell Brett Newman
Joint CEO Joint CEO