Keeping everyone healthy

Health and wellness is a core priority for First Quantum, both in the workplace and in the community. Our onsite health services evolve alongside our operations throughout its lifecycle, to meet the changing needs and priorities of the people who work there.

Health in remote environments

During the construction phase of Cobre Panamá, ensuring fitness to work in a remote environment, creating excellent primary care, emergency preparedness and response and referral care were the top priorities. By focusing on these areas, we were able to lay a fantastic foundation that could be built upon as the operation grew, adding services that would focus on occupational health and medical surveillance, as well as wellness and wellbeing services looking after mental health, non-communicable diseases and managing fatigue.

These services are delivered by our passionate and skilled team, which is made up of a wide range of experts. This includes medical doctors to general nurses, occupational health nurses, laboratory technicians, pharmacists, administrators, paramedics and ambulance drivers – and led by our Medical Superintendent.

The main medical facility on site is in Cobre Camp. It includes general consultation rooms, a 2-bay fully equipped resuscitation area, pharmacy and medicines store, procedure room and a separate specialist occupational health center and laboratory. A second, smaller clinic is found at the port in Punta Rincon, with a more limited scope of primary care and emergency care requirements. Both clinics have facilities that look after mothers returning from maternity leave, including a breast milk bank. Two additional first aid stations provide immediate emergency care at the mine pit and the vocational training center in La Pintada.

Partnering with local government

We’re immensely proud of how the medical team superbly managed the Covid-19 outbreak, forming strong partnerships with the Ministry of Health and health research partners such as Gorgas Memorial Institute. To support the sites’ response, a dedicated laboratory was established at the Cobre Camp clinic that now supports general health needs in addition to the diagnosis and surveillance of respiratory and vector-borne diseases.

Wellness services have expanded over time and include awareness and education, screening services, on-site and off-site referral to mental health specialists, as well as off-site referral to a specialist provider for workers at risk of non-communicable diseases.

As part of our agreement with the Ministry of Health, the site health team also support the immediate care, stabilization and referral of medical emergencies that occur in our communities, as well as basic first aid training. This service is particularly important to the surrounding communities as they do not have easy access to other public health services.