You still can’t work as a skipper in good standing because of the Ministry of Health

”There are many positive responses, for example, we have initiated a fruitful discussion with the Ministry of the Environment on dredging, and others surprisingly negative, such as the stance taken by the Ministry of Health, which – for months – has been blocking courses for the Simplified Professional Title.”

The “bottleneck” of the Ministry of Health

It is a blunt indictment of the Health Department by Saverio Cecchi, president of Confindustria Nautica, at the association’s public assembly held Dec. 12 in Rome.

Which concerns the ban on access to First Aid (First Aid) courses for aspirants to the title of 2nd Class Yachting Officer, the new figure of professional skipper introduced from this year that we told you about in detail here. An obstacle that prevents one of the qualifications required to enter the examinations at the Harbour Master’s Offices and in fact blocks the whole measure.

The terms of the problem

After decades of waiting, a law has finally clarified that pleasure craft and merchant vessels are two different things, and different qualifications are needed to conduct them in the charter business. Thus it established the new figure of the professional skipper (Officer of Pleasure Navigation 2nd class), untethered from that of the merchant navy master registered among the seafarers of the “Seafarers”.

To become a professional skipper one needs, among other things, to pass an exam at the Harbour Master’s Office and training courses: basic firefighting, survival and rescue, personal safety and social responsibility (Pssr) and medical first aid (First Aid). These courses until now were reserved for “Seafarers” seafarers, but the Ministry of Infrastructure has authorized their attendance also for aspiring new skippers. For all but one: that of “first aid (First Aid)” where the green light is also needed from the Ministry of Health. An approval that has been solicited for months but inexplicably does not arrive, blocking the law and holding thousands of candidates hostage Who may be entering a new, in-demand profession.

Calculation or superficiality?

The Sailing Newspaper has long denounced this irresponsible behavior of bureaucrats in the Ministry of Health, and now the Boating Industry Association is also pointing the finger at this department, which is obstructing the new title of professional skipper. It is not known whether consciously or simply out of indolence.

Fabrizio Coccia