We care for the lives of our employees and pay great attention to their health. We have issued a series of policies and taken effective measures to improve our health care system in order to offer employees a salutary and pleasant working environment.
Occupational health
We ensure the occupational health of our employees through an integrated, prevention-oriented approach encompassing infrastructure development, occupational health checks, and improved health management and services in line with the Law of the People's Republic of China on Prevention and Control of Occupational Diseases. We provide the same health and labor protection for temporary employees, contract employees and contractor's employees. We have carried out research on occupational health management, consolidated the health management of production frontlines, especially at the field construction sites, and enhanced the risk prevention and control of occupational disease hazards and health monitoring.
As an oil and gas player, we identify job-related occupational hazards in our particular operational environment, maintain strict controls on sites with hazardous operations, strengthen the monitoring of occupational health and occupational disease hazards,improve the environment of construction operations,and provide health training to corporate executives, project managers and key technicians, to improve their professional skills and awareness of health risks.
Psychological health
CNPC attaches importance to employees' mental health and includes employees' mental health management into its daily management package. We invite psychologists to communicate with employees to alleviate their psychological pressure and provide coping methods. In addition, we employ counselors to deliver lectures on cultivating a healthy mind and other psychological knowledge for frontline employees working in saline wastelands, deserts and other harsh natural environments, in order to help them release stress and live a healthy and happy life. Overseas, we send experts to our projects in host countries, to provide mental health counseling and deal with employees' psychological pressures.
We implement the Employee Assistance Program (EAP), set up a hotline and a website for psychological counseling, and carry out various forms of training on mental health knowledge, in order to guide the employees to build a positive and healthy mindset. In 2016, the first stress debriefing clinic under CNPC's EAP program was opened to provide mental health services for overseas employees and their families. The company was granted the EAP Quality Award 2016 by the Employee Assistance Professionals Association (EAPA). In 2019, the psychological hotline provided services to nearly 400 persons for about 1,200 hours.
Overseas employees' health
With regard to employee health at our overseas projects, we issue the Guide to Occupational Health Management for Overseas Employees. A completed employee healthcare network has been established in most of the host countries where we operate.
To improve the health of our employees at our overseas projects, we continue to improve mechanisms for healthcare and take action to prevent and control diseases pursuant to the local environment and medical availability. Based on the climate and healthcare conditions in host countries, we provide health care services including disease prevention, dietary hygiene and psychological counseling. As overseas employees usually work in remote areas with limited medical facilities and tough living conditions, we have developed a routine shift system for overseas employees, and flexibly arrange their vacations back in China in order to ensure their physical and mental health. We implement mental health service projects overseas to improve employees' mental health, assign psychologists to Kazakhstan, Brazil, Peru and some other countries to provide mental health consultation services to show our care for their mental health.
Personnel safety has always been an overriding priority in our operations. We constantly reinforce the operation of social security management system, fully strengthen social security risk prevention and control, and continuously enhance emergency response capabilities. In 2019, there were no fatalities in our overseas projects concerning social security.