public safety

Lifeguard shortage threatens swimmers

The country’s top lifeguard said not enough is being done to prevent accidents.

la prensa

on guard: SINAPROC officials said that the agency has had trouble finding qualified lifeguards because the private sector is able to offer them higher monthly salaries.1118458

With the dry season just around the corner, Nelson Lara, the president of Panama's lifeguard association is warning that not enough people will be patrolling the country's popular swimming spots.

Lara blamed the situation on the government's failure to enforce a 2007 law that required all businesses that have either a pool or access to a river or beach to hire properly trained lifeguards,

Lara has also provided the government with regulations that he thinks will cut down on the number of swimming-related accidents. These regulations include having a lifeguard on duty for every 200 square meters of swimming pool area and two lifeguards for every 200 meters of beach.

To support his case, Lara points to various incidents that have taken place in the last few years. One of them happened last May in the pool of the Hotel La Gaviota in Coronado. In that incident, Alfonso Fábrega, 9, nearly drowned when he became trapped underwater by a suction pump. No lifeguard was on duty at the time.

The hotel was fined $5,000, but has appealed that fine to the Supreme Court. A civil case is still pending.

Statistics SINAPROC, the government's civil defense agency, show that during 2007 there were 78 deaths by drowning, several of them in places where the law provides that there should be lifeguards.

For Lara, this is proof that the lifeguards “are not decorative objects at aquatic recreation sites, but the potential difference between life and death for a swimmer.”

Panama's dry season usually begins in mid-December, and forecasts predict that this year will follow that pattern.

Lara has expressed concern that the government has done little to ensure that swimmers will be safe, and that many popular areas will not be patrolled at all.

But Luis Francisco Sucre, an official with SINAPROC, said that the issue has been addressed. Not only does the agency have an operational plan to patrol popular swimming areas during the dry season, but it has made an effort to increase the amount of patrols that are on duty.

“The country has between 12 and 14 popular public swimming areas, and there are 150 lifeguards who will work in the operation to protect them,” Sucre said.

Sucre said that SINAPROC will be working with the Red Cross to provide proper safety measures for public swimming areas. One problem facing SINAPROC is that it is having trouble finding qualified individuals. He said that hotels are resorts are hiring most of the lifeguards away from SINAPROC, offering them wages that the government entity can't match.

“It's a problem of supply and demand,” said Sucre, who explained that SINAPROC's monthly salaries of between $300 and $350 is not enough compared to what the private sector is paying.