The Anvil Group secures contract to provide specialist medical care in Sierra Leone

UK based security company, The Anvil Group, has been awarded a contract by a long-standing client to safeguard the health and security of its international workforce during a construction project in Sierra Leone.

The medical and security professionals, known as MIRA (Medics in Remote Areas) will be on standby to administer healthcare to all employees located in the West African country, where medical facilities and quality of care falls seriously short of U.S. and European standards. The Anvil Group has been a regular supplier of security services to this particular client in a number of high risk locations, ranging from close protection to identifying secure long-term accommodation for key workers.  However, the assignment in Sierra Leone is the first to call for individuals offering a combination of medical and security expertise. “Sierra Leone is still recovering from a decade of civil war, and when we investigated the healthcare options, we quickly established that in the event of a medical emergency there would be a significant risk to the health of our client’s employees, as the majority of healthcare workers in the country lack any professional training. For that reason, “The Golden Hour”, as it is referred to by pre-hospital life support teams, may need to be extended by up to 6 hours, whilst arrangements are made for a full medical evacuation of the patient,” explained Ian Hughes, Director of The Anvil Group. He continued, “For this contract, we have utilised operatives with hostile environment experience, where it is essential for professionally trained medics to have specialist security training in addition.” The civil engineering company has stated it will be employing and training workers locally, as well as bringing in its own people from other countries.