19 Aug 2014

Phikwe central team was crowned champions of the BCL Mine First Aid Competition and it will represent the mine at national inter-mine competitions on October 11 at Sua Town. 

Concentrator team got position two, Selebi team settled for the third position while South Central Team came fourth.

Speaking at the interdepartmental First Aid competitions, Botswana Red Cross Society official, Ms Mabel Rammekwa acknowledged and applauded BCL Mine for holding the first aid competitions and for continuously striving for excellence.

Ms Rammekwa said the first aid competition provides a platform of skills test and application to ensure employee’s preparedness in time of need. 

“This competition is an examination organised to test the levels employees have mastered regarding skills and knowledge of first aid,” she said.

She noted that first aid concept is a life line under the circumstances that could lead to loss of life and given to a victim of an accident or illness immediately after the incident before arrival of professional medical help.

Ms Rammekwa applauded BCL Mine for achieving the above minimum requirement target of maintaining 85 per cent of trained employees with valid first aid certificates.

She said this year, BCL Mine first aid training has equipped 658 workers with first aid skills which makes a total of 3506 BCL employees and contractors trained in the past three years.

For his part, Dr Khumoitsile Mapitse who is BCL Mine’s Health Services manager said judges accorded points looking at whether the teams managed to prove their skill and assertiveness in first aid issues.

He said during the competition they paid attention to the high level skills in giving first aid and what the teams portrayed.

Dr Mapitse noted that the judges looked at whether the first aid officers followed the prescribed steps in administering first aid depending on what kind of injuries they had to attend.

Further, he said they gave points looking at the fact that the competitors attended all wounds incurred by victims on the scene.

“We looked at the fact that the first aid teams did their work accordingly and to the best of their ability when facing such incidents,” he said.

For his part, BCL Mine’s head of Organisational Capability, Mr Motsile Sibanda thanked all participants for displaying high skill in terms of first Aid and urged officers to keep up the good work and always be ready to assist victims when the time arises.

The BCL Mine general manager, Mr Dan Mahupela said it was BCL intention to continue to uphold high ethics when it came to first aid and strive to keep safe and secure working environment for workers.

The BCL Mine interdepartmental First Aid completion was held under the theme ‘First Aid, A Life line’, where eight teams namely Phikwe Central, Smelter, Selebi, South East Extension, Selebi North, Resource Planning, Concentrator and Asset Management comprising of six people took part in the competition over the weekend.  ENDS