The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore issued a new circular concerning enhancements to crew change for cargo ships in the port of Singapore.
With effect from 01 September 2020, MPA will consider the following circumstances for crew change applications
(a) crew whose employment contract has expired
(b)additional crew on board whose sign-off would not affect the safe manning of the ship ;
(c) change of crew due to the sale or purchase of ship;
(d) personnel who are not part of the ship’s crew such as superintendents and service engineers;
(e) compassionate grounds e.g. death of family member; or
(f) the crew is no longer medically fit to work onboard the ship.
The requirements for crew change are as follows:
Signing on
In general, all signing-on crew are required to serve 14-days Stay-HomeNotice (SHN) in the originating country/region. The crew should be properly
isolated (individual room with dedicated toilet) with strictly no interaction with others (including family members) at his/her place of residence, or serve the SHN in a dedicated facility/hotel.
Crew from specific low risk countries/regions will either no longer be required to serve the SHN or serve a shorter SHN of 7 days in the originating
country/region prior to departure for Singapore 1.
(c) In addition to the SHN requirement, if a crew was previously diagnosed with COVID-19, the date of first ever positive PCR test must be more than 21 days ago from date of departure from the home country to Singapore.
(d) The crew must have a negative result from a COVID-19 test (polymerase chain reaction (PCR) type) taken at a government-approved or ISO 15189-accredited testing facility not more than 48 hours prior to the departure flight.
(e) The crew shall be certified fit-to-travel by a doctor at his/her originating country not more than 24 hours prior to the departure flight.
(f) During the entire crew change process, especially during the journey to join the ship in Singapore, crew may be in groups of not more than five (5)
persons, but must remain in the same group, and there must be no interactions between the groups.
(g) The crew shall only arrive Singapore to join his/her ship not more than two (2) days before the ship’s departure from Singapore.
Signing-off
a) The crew must not have gone ashore in the last 14 days before disembarking the ship and has remained well throughout that period.
b) The crew shall be certified fit-to-travel by a doctor in Singapore not more than 24 hours before disembarking the ship.
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