Lone workers, shared sites and clinics excused from first-aid appointee duty

Employers whose staff work alone need not designate a first-aid provider (esmaabiandja).Tooelu The same applies where employers operating in a shared work environment agree on a joint first-aid arrangementTooelu, and to health-service providers, which need not designate one at all.Tooelu

The starting point is unchanged: the employer designates at least one first-aid provider from among the employees, and only a worker with the relevant training may serve in the role. The number is scaled to the headcount, how often health damage occurs, how the business is spread across regions, and the nature of the activity, so several appointees may be needed. Where a business sits in several territorially separate units or work runs in shifts, at least one provider must be present in each unit or shift. Planning must assume that accidents can also happen to the provider, and that the only provider may be on leave, on sick leave or otherwise away.

The exemptions remove the designation duty; they do not remove first-aid availability itselfTooelu. The employer still ensures that first aid and first-aid supplies are available at the workplace. Instructions for giving first aid, the emergency number 112 and the provider's name and telephone number go in a visible place, and staff are told through other channels as well, with updates whenever appointees change. Supplies must be obtainable, accessible and marked, including in cars, tractors and mobile or special machines used for work tasks. A first-aid room, or a room adaptable for the purpose with stretcher access and marking, is provided where the headcount, the nature of the activity or the character of the injuries requires it; a rest room can serve if lying down is possible there. Transport of an injured worker to a health-care institution or home follows the doctor's instructions, and the provider regularly checks that supplies exist and fit the company's needs.

The employer arranges and pays for the provider's training within one month of designation: at least 16 academic hours, with a six-academic-hour refresher every three years, at average daily pay during both. No fresh training cycle is needed where the appointee completed equivalent training up to three years before designation, and no refresher is needed where equivalent training was completed within three years after the previous provider training. No training cycle is arranged at all where the appointee's everyday work already presupposes providing emergency-medicine, anaesthesiology, intensive-care or ambulance services. Training and refresher training run through a continuing-training institution under the adult-education framework, led by a registered health-care professional holding a first-aid-teacher certificate.

The syllabus covers assessing the accident scene and acting in it including panic management, calling emergency services, assessing the victim including repositioning risks, principles of first aid and outdoor particularities; life-threatening states including heart attack, stroke and lung injury; unconsciousness including airways, brain injury from oxygen deprivation, foreign bodies and resuscitation including AED use; injuries including bleeding control, bandaging, fractures, splinting, joint trauma, bruises and eye damage; drowning, poisoning, corrosion, burns, cold injury and electric shock; medical shock; sudden illness including epileptic seizure, diabetic coma, anaphylactic shock, fainting, asthma attack and abdominal pain; and selecting and using workplace first-aid supplies. Reporting designated providers through the TEIS self-service is voluntary.

Legal basis: Töötervishoiu ja tööohutuse seadus § 13², with training detail in tervise- ja tööministri määrus nr 50.