First aiders at a hotel: how many, which training and where the kit goes

Turkish occupational health and safety rules set minimum first aider ratios that depend on the workplace's hazard class. A first aider is a designated employee with a valid certificate; the figure is a workplace minimum, not a shift plan. Confirm the current ratios and your hotel's hazard class with your occupational safety expert.

The inspection asks one question the general manager often cannot answer on the spot: name the first aiders on duty tonight, on each shift, and show the certificates. The number in the regulation is easy to read and easy to misapply. After reading this article you will be able to calculate your minimum from your own employee count and hazard class, turn that number into a shift roster, place and check the kits, and keep a log that survives both an inspection and an incident.

How many first aiders does a hotel need?#

The number comes from your hazard class, not from your room count: one first aider per 20 employees in a low-hazard workplace, one per 15 in a hazardous one and one per 10 in a very hazardous one. The rule sits in Article 19 of the Ministry of Health's First Aid Regulation (opens in a new tab) (Official Gazette 29.07.2015, No. 29429). It is a duty of the employer under occupational health and safety, and the figure is a floor, not a target.

The ratio is counted per workplace, so a group running three separate facilities counts each facility's own employees, not the group total. Which ratio applies depends on the hazard class recorded for that workplace; this article does not tell you which class a hotel falls into, because that is a decision made from your own hazard class notification and confirmed with your safety expert. You can read more in how a hotel's hazard class and safety expert time are set.

Count the employees the regulation counts at that workplace, and ask your safety expert how seasonal, part-time and outsourced staff such as security, cleaning and spa teams are treated before you settle the number. Round up: a partial first aider does not exist, so 46 employees in a hazardous workplace need four certified people, not three and a fraction. Write the number down with the employee count and the date it was calculated, because both change and the calculation has to be repeatable at the next visit.

The three ratios at a glance#

The source is Article 19 of the First Aid Regulation (Official Gazette 29.07.2015, No. 29429). The third column is arithmetic on that ratio, for example only, and says nothing about which class a hotel belongs to.

How many first aiders does each shift need?#

More than the ratio, because the regulation sets a headcount for the workplace while a hotel has to put a certified person in front of an incident at any hour. Map the day first: morning, afternoon and night, seven days a week, plus the pool, the beach and the banquet floor when they are open. A single certified person per shift fails the first time that person takes annual leave, calls in sick or leaves the job, so plan a spare per shift rather than a spare per hotel.

The night shift is the thinnest and the least forgiving: one receptionist, one security guard and one kitchen steward may be the whole property, and the certified name on the roster is often the one who is not there. Build the roster as one page: name, department, shift pattern, certificate expiry date, and a second name who covers that shift. Decide in advance who takes the call at 04:00 and who is woken if the first aider needs a second pair of hands; that decision belongs in the hotel emergency plan, not in the moment.

Check the outsourced teams separately: a security or cleaning contractor's staff may hold certificates, but the hotel still has to know whether they count toward its own duty and whether they are on site when needed.

Who should be trained?#

Train the people who are physically near the risk at the hour it happens, which is rarely the same list as the people with the longest job titles. Front desk and night reception are always staffed, always the first call, and the person who has to decide within seconds whether to call an ambulance. Kitchen and stewarding see burns, cuts and hot liquid as everyday injuries, and the certified person should be in the room, not on another floor. Housekeeping supervisors walk floors and enter rooms alone, and they are the ones who find a guest on the floor.

Pool, beach and spa deserve one check of their own: a lifeguard certificate and a first aider certificate are different documents, so check which one each person actually holds. Technical service carries its own risks, in the boiler room, at electrical panels and on roof access, and often at quiet hours. Choose for coverage and for staying power: a certified person who leaves after four months costs the hotel a course and leaves a gap, so spread certificates across departments and across lengths of service.

Guest-facing language matters too. At a property with Russian, German or Arabic-speaking guests, at least one certified person per shift should be able to take a simple symptom description in the guest's language or reach someone who can.

Which training counts, and how do you track expiry?#

Training counts when it comes from a provider the regulation recognises and ends in a certificate with a name and a date on it; the hotel's job is the register that keeps those dates alive. The regulation sets who may deliver first aid training and how often the certificate is renewed; this article does not restate a renewal period, because the current text was not verified while writing it. Confirm the period and the approved providers with your occupational safety expert or the provincial health directorate before you build the register.

Keep one register with: full name, department, role, certificate number, training provider, training date and expiry date, and where the paper copy sits. Set the reminder well before expiry, not on the expiry date, and put the renewal on the same calendar as the periodic inspections so it is not discovered during an incident. Keep a copy in the personnel file and a second copy in the training file the safety expert reviews; two copies is not bureaucracy when one of them is in a locked drawer and the other is needed at 02:00.

When a certified person leaves, the register changes the same week and the replacement is booked, not promised. Record the in-house refresher you run between formal courses: a 20-minute walk-through of the kit and the call list each season keeps the knowledge usable without pretending it replaces the certificate.

Where should the first aid kit be, and who checks it?#

At the point of use, in every area where an injury is plausible, with a named checker and a monthly signature that carries a date. Plan by risk area rather than by building: front desk, kitchen, pool and beach station, housekeeping floor pantry, technical service, spa and the night security post each need a kit close enough to reach in under a minute. Mount it where it can be seen, mark its position on the area's wall sign and on the hotel's site plan, and make sure it opens without fetching a key from an office.

Check the contents against the list the regulation's annex requires, and confirm the current annex with your safety expert rather than trusting a list printed years ago. Replace what is used the same day it is used, and treat a broken seal as a used kit even if nothing appears to be missing. Give each area one named checker and one named deputy, and have the checker sign with a date rather than a tick, so a gap in the log is visible. Have a second person cross-check quarterly; the person who restocks a kit is the least likely to notice that the kit has quietly lost its scissors.

Monthly kit check#

What do you log after a first aid incident?#

A short factual entry written on the same shift, which says who attended, what was used and what happened next, and which matches the hotel's incident report line for line. Record: date and time, place, whether the person was a guest, an employee or a contractor, who attended and which certificate they hold, what was taken from the kit, whether a doctor or ambulance was called, and whether the person returned to work or to the room.

Leave out diagnosis and opinion. The log says what was seen and done, not what the hotel thinks was wrong with the person. Keep the log and the incident report consistent: two documents with two different times is the first thing a safety expert or an insurer notices. Health details are sensitive personal data under KVKK (kişisel verilerin korunması kanunu, the personal data protection law), so restrict who can read the log and keep only what the response needs; confirm access and retention rules with your adviser.

Read the log monthly for patterns: the same kitchen corner, the same wet poolside tile, the same lift door. A repeated entry is a maintenance job, not a training problem. Restock and re-seal the kit as part of closing the entry, so the next incident does not start with an empty box. The response itself, from the first call to the follow-up, is covered in the routine for a guest who falls ill.

What should the safety expert see once a year?#

One page that proves the duty is running: the count, the ratio, the names, the expiry dates and the kit checks, with the gaps already written down as actions. Put the employee count and the hazard class at the top, with the ratio that follows from them and the number of certified people required. List the certified people with their expiry dates, then show the shift coverage grid so the expert can see the night shift without asking.

Summarise the kit checks: how many areas, how many signed monthly checks, how many gaps, and what was done about them. Attach the incidents since the last visit with their log entries and incident report numbers, and say what changed as a result. Write the open actions with a name and a date, and carry last year's page next to this year's so the direction is visible. Bring the certificates themselves, not only the register; the page is the index, the documents are the evidence.

The one-page sheet#

What to do next#

Start with two numbers this week: the employee count at the workplace and the hazard class on your notification. Apply the Article 19 ratio to them, then put the result against your shift pattern, and you will see immediately whether the hotel has enough certified people or only enough on paper. The roster page, the kit checks and the log all hang off that first calculation.