Current events

Annual Evaluation Meeting of the Staff

NPP Fire Service and Ambulance Service held a staff meeting for the evaluation of the year 2010 on 19 January 2011. Top executives and managers of Paks Nuclear Power Plant Co. and Atomix Ltd. as well as commanders of the county’s fire departments and heads and representatives of all organizations that NPP Fire Service has partner connections with were invited to the meeting. First, Fire Chief of NPP Fire Service Péter Bőhm welcomed those present and then he called upon Mr. Csaba Szinger, managing director of Atomix Ltd., to address the meeting. Mr. Szinger provided information on the organizational changes of Atomix, the activities of its business branches, including the Fire Service’ situation and role within Atomix. He emphasized that the previous year, which was a year of significant success, had seen considerable development in Atomix’s life.

Péter Bőhm introduced his presentation with the following citation from Goethe: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!” In his opinion, this thought is very typical of the Fire Service as they launched and realized several new professional activities and initiatives. With this approach and course of action, they not only helped their own development, but also have made a great contribution to the progress of other professional and volunteer fire departments in Hungary. Among others, the Fire Chief rendered account of the legal situation and diverse activities of the organization where the Power Plant-related fire prevention, fire fighting and technical rescue tasks were the highest priority obligations for NPP Fire Service. He laid particular stress on the drills held in common with the plant operative staff and also made a mention on the participation in remedying environmental damage and reconstruction work after the red mud disaster.

As to the staff number, the Fire Chief said that a slight change had occurred just like in recent years. He mentioned that a portion of the staff was expected to reach the retirement age at the same time, and the proper solutions to overcome this problem without a hitch were already being sought for. In addition, he spoke about administrative tasks, emoluments, trainings, drills and competitions and also raised issues related to the technical background and human resources.

He related that the increased number of alarms was attributable to the increase in alarms triggered by external events that required provision of assistance in city area, elevator-related rescue operations and ambulance services. He described the continuation of trainings in local knowledge, joint exercises and drills with the professional and operative staff, preparation for extension and management training as the key prospective tasks they have. Also, he announced the implementation of the mission control point as the outcome of a multi-annual work programme. He was happy to make a mention on the commemorative coin “NPP Fire Service” granted, according to the number of votes cast by the rank and file, this very first time to fire engine commander István Puxler.

Dr. Gábor Szvitán, ambulance doctor, gave an account of the last-year activities of NPP Ambulance Service. Considering their tasks, he gave top priority to the rescue and decontamination of the employees who suffered radiation exposure and the acute patient care. As regards the expanded safety and security measures, he spoke about the procurement and application of emergency bags, defibrillators and a set of limb immobilizer rails. He said that the last year’s number of alarms, 152, shows some increase as compared to former years’ numbers.

Most of all, they provided care for employees who suffered accident-related injuries, but also provided ambulatory assistance in case of burn, electric shock and internal diseases. Besides, Dr. Szvitán gave account of the ongoing training programmes, mentioning the importance of local knowledge, the joint drills and other activities not closely related to patient care such as first aid trainings and demonstrations.

Mr. István Radnóti, Safety Director of Paks Nuclear Power Plant, expressed his thanks to NPP Fire Service for their work and emphasized firemen’s leading role in emergency patient care, fighting fires of live equipment and the implementation of the mobile mission control point. Regarding power plant operations, he said that NPP reached the best production results of its corporate history in the year 2010. Implementation of the project designed to increase production capacities of the blocks and the availability index, indicating the rate of production efficiency that was as high as 89.96% last year, were also great contributions to reaching the record 15.761 GWh.

As regards power plant extension, he said that the task of the Lévai Project was to prepare the invitation to tender. Evaluation of the invitation should take place by the end of 2012. István Radnóti stressed that NPP Fire Service was an organic part of maintaining the Power Plant’s safety level and the way Fire Service operations are organized was a guarantee for the highly professional work in the future, too. In his view, fire-fighters were well qualified and prepared, with high-quality technical background, and were available at any time if power plant’s interests so require.

Mrs. Anna Lovásziné
Katasztrófavédelem
January 2011