Lose weight or risk losing your job, chunky oil rig workers told
Thousands of North Sea oil and gas workers risk losing their jobs on offshore rigs unless they lose weight within the next year.Workers who weigh more than 124.7kg (19.5 st) fully clothed will need to shed some pounds by next November or risk being barred from working offshore, according to the industry’s trade body.The new safety policy is expected to affect 2,500 people employed offshore who are above the weight limit, which has been put in place so that workers can be winched to safety by a rescue helicopter in an emergency.
Graham Skinner, the health and safety manager at Offshore Energies UK, the industry’s trade association, said the organisation will be “working really hard” over the next 12 months to ensure affected workers can lose weight,Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme, he said: “Our population in general is getting heavier, and that is reflected in the offshore population,”Skinner said there are a further 2,500 offshore workers who are “below the weight limit but might need some additional support and weight management”, meaning “5,000 is the total number of people who might be affected to some lesser or greater extent” by the policy change,“Those people will be really supported by the offshore community and their employers during that time,” he added,“We have been addressing this over the years, but unfortunately weight has continued to rise,” Skinner said.
“It increases year on year and it begins to create some challenges across all the safety systems we have in place offshore to bring workers home if the worst happens, whether it’s illness or injury.“We’ve worked together for the last two and a half years as an industry to find solutions across things like lifeboats, stretchers, helicopter rescue, and we’ve really discovered a weight limit is the only solution available to us.”
Royal College of Psychiatrists faces member backlash over Qatar partnership
The Royal College of Psychiatrists is facing a backlash from members over a controversial partnership with Qatar’s state healthcare provider.The college has signed a contract with the state-owned Hamad Medical Corporation to host international exams in Doha, enabling psychiatrists from across the Middle East and beyond to apply for membership.But the decision to hold clinical exams in a country with well-documented human rights abuses and in which same-sex relationships are criminalised has prompted more than 150 psychiatrists from leading UK hospitals and universities to sign a letter to the president of the college.“A commercial relationship with Qatar’s public health system, a de facto branch of its government, runs a risk of significant reputational damage to the college,” states the letter, which was sent in September.“Women are denied equal rights in a number of domains and there is no legal protection for domestic abuse,” the letter says
Having open conversations with boys is key to fending off the manosphere threat | Letters
It’s great to see that there are young men who are actively looking for alternatives to the kinds of masculinities displayed online (I’m a teenager who was lured into the manosphere. Here’s how to reach young men like me, 2 November). But to me, Josh Sargent’s article is about more than just the manosphere. It’s about the platforms that facilitate it, and how social media diverts attention away from things like reading and toward things that largely don’t matter. Josh says it himself: “in fairness, short-form content is slightly more engaging than Macbeth quotation flashcards”
Social media misinformation driving men to seek unneeded NHS testosterone therapy, doctors say
Social media misinformation is driving men to NHS clinics in search of testosterone therapy they don’t need, adding pressure to already stretched waiting lists, doctors have said.Testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) is a prescription-only treatment recommended under national guidelines for men with a clinically proven deficiency, confirmed by symptoms and repeated blood tests.But a wave of viral videos on TikTok and Instagram have begun marketing blood tests as a means of accessing testosterone as lifestyle supplement, advertising the hormone as a solution to problems such as low energy levels, poor concentration and reduced sex drive.Doctors warn taking testosterone unnecessarily can suppress the body’s natural hormone production, cause infertility, and increase the risk of blood clots, heart problems and mood disorders.The online demand for treatment is so great that medical professionals have now begun to see it mirrored in their clinics
‘Heroic actions are a natural tendency’: why bystander apathy is a myth
It was early morning on 1 January last year when Colin McGarva dived into a flooding river in Worcester to rescue an unconscious woman. McGarva said he didn’t think twice about the risk to himself, or the devastating loss his newborn son would suffer had he too been swept away by the fast-flowing icy waters.“I didn’t stop to think because the instinct – the instant reaction – is to help someone in need,” he said. “Someone’s life is an important thing. Helping is just something you have to do
Sex offender freed from Wandsworth prison by mistake is back in custody
A convicted sex offender who was released from prison by mistake a week ago is back in custody.Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, from Algeria, was accidentally freed on 29 October from Wandsworth prison in south London. He was arrested in Finsbury Park, north London, on Friday after police said they had received a call from a member of the public.The erroneous release, and that of another prisoner who was mistakenly freed, has led to mounting political pressure on David Lammy, the justice secretary, days after he introduced stringent checks for jails.Lammy had refused several times to say whether any more prisoners had been released in error in a bruising session of prime minister’s questions (PMQs) on Wednesday, having been ambushed with a string of questions
Tom Butler obituary
My friend Tom Butler, who has died of lymphoma after a short illness aged 73, was a former head of NHS mental health services in inner-city Manchester.Alongside his career in social work and mental health, Tom was a historian of social policy in the UK and author of several books, including Mental Health, Social Policy and the Law, published in 1985. As a young social worker, he pioneered the use of computer databases to improve child protection while working for Berkshire social services.He was born in Gloucester to Irish parents, Margaret (nee Bolger) and Patrick Butler, a draughtsman in the aircraft industry. Tom attended St Peter’s Roman Catholic junior school in Gloucester, where we first met
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