Crew welfare
A sick or injured seafarer needs three things at once: a doctor, a decision and someone on shore who will not stop until both have happened. Maingate Shipping's Mombasa desk handles medical cases for vessels at berth, at anchorage and passing off the coast, and repatriates seafarers who cannot continue the voyage.
We work with hospitals in Mombasa that treat seafarers regularly, with the port's medical and immigration authorities, with the vessel's P&I club and its correspondents, and with airlines on medical clearance for the flight home.
At berth, the seafarer is taken to hospital by road with an agent's representative. At anchorage or off port limits, a launch or, in serious cases, a coast guard or rescue asset is arranged, and the hospital is warned before the patient lands. The master receives a written note of what was arranged and when.
Admission, deposits where hospitals require them, daily condition reports to the owner and the club, second opinions where the diagnosis matters for the seafarer's future, and discharge planning. Costs are tracked against the guarantee the club or owner has given.
Fit-to-fly certification, a medical escort where the doctor requires one, a wheelchair or stretcher booking with the airline, passport and exit formalities, and a handover at the home airport arranged with the family or the manning agent. Compassionate repatriations for a death in the family run on the same desk with the same care.
This desk is part of Maingate Shipping Limited, the Mombasa ship agency, crewing and brokerage house that has attended vessels at Kenyan ports since 2020 from its office at Express Building, Moi Avenue. Port agency at Mombasa and Lamu is handled by the company's own boarding officers; calls elsewhere in Africa run through the Maingate agency line under one DA format and one reporting style; Kenyan seafarers are recruited and managed from the same office; and the chartering desk fixes the tonnage that brings East Africa its wheat, fertilizer, clinker and fuel.
Principals deal with one desk for the whole voyage, and every service is agreed in writing before it is performed.
Yes. Off-port-limits medical evacuations are arranged with a launch and, where needed, the maritime rescue services, and the vessel continues on passage once the patient is landed.
We liaise with the club and its local correspondent on every medical case, provide the reports they require and follow the guarantees they issue.
The crewing desk arranges the relief seafarer in parallel with the medical case so that the vessel does not sail short.
One instruction, one account, one contact for the master and one for the principal.
Related desks on the same instruction line.
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Maingate Shipping Limited · Express Building, Moi Avenue, Mombasa, Kenya · ops@maingateshipping.com · +254 784 622 091