Preventing COVID-19 Spread
The INK Group created the dedicated coordination centre and headquarters to prevent the spread of coronavirus infection. The Group has implemented the Standard on Ensuring Business Continuity in the Coronavirus Infection (COVID-19) Context and other regulatory documents and have signed contracts with hotels in different cities for observatory services and with medical laboratories for employee testing. New structural subdivisions were created in the HealthCare Department of Irkutsk Oil Company LLC, including an epidemiologist position.
The updated Golden Safety Rules now include the 11th Rule, Control over the Spread of Viral Diseases. The rule prescribes strict compliance with all sanitary and epidemiological requirements, which are established by the laws of the Russian Federation, the requirements of Rospotrebnadzor, the Ministry of Health and the company itself, to prevent the emergence and spread of infection.
At field
- Observation before entry to the production facilities
- Mandatory COVID-19 medical testing
- Maximum reduction in the number of personnel at production facilities
- Limiting the intersection of employee flows between locations
- Non-contact thermometry
- Creating observatories for contact persons
- Control of compliance with sanitary and epidemiological measures
- Daily testing of at-risk employees
- Mass vaccination/revaccination of employees
In Offices
- Employees’ attendance restriction
- Switching to remote work mode by many employees
- Emergency response to new infection cases
- Medical support for employees and their families until full recovery.
- Mass vaccination/revaccination of employees and then their families, relatives, and friends.
A 24-hour hotline was set up for staff counselling support during the pandemic. The contribution of the corporate volunteer movement to this work is invaluable. Volunteers worked in the call centre, accommodated rotational workers in observatories, purchased medicines, and delivered all the necessities for those who were at risk and had to comply with the self-isolation regime. Volunteers in the town of Ust-Kut procured medicines for shift workers in the group’s fields.
The fight against the spread of COVID-19 was not limited to the Irkutsk Oil Company LLC facilities. The Group provides financial assistance to the healthcare system of the Irkutsk Region. Ust-Kut District Hospital was the first to receive funds, and then contracts were signed for charitable donations to medical institutions, organizations, and state and municipal authorities of the Irkutsk Region, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), and Krasnoyarsk Region to implement measures to combat the spread of infection (purchase of non-contact thermometers, air recirculators, ventilator devices, oxygen concentrators, medicines, PPE).
A 60-bed high-tech medical building was built and put into operation in Ust-Kut with funds provided by Irkutsk Oil Company LLC. More than 100 oxygen concentrators were delivered to medical institutions of the region, and ventilators, bronchoscopes, recirculators, medicines, and PPE were purchased.
In November 2020, the Marina Sedykh Charity Fund launched the Stop Covid rehabilitation plan for residents of Ust-Kut District who suffered moderate to severe COVID-19 under a specially developed and approved rehabilitation programme by the Russian Ministry of Health. This program is aimed at restoring the health of socially vulnerable groups in Ust-Kut District: low-income families with many children, single-parent families, non-working pensioners, people with disabilities of groups 1, 2, and 5. Thanks to this project, 250 people have already undergone rehabilitation treatment in sanatoria and health resorts. A rehabilitation programme is also provided for the medical staff of the Ust-Kut District Hospital who fell ill.
