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Occupational disease Silicosis takes huge tolls on China
www.chinaview.cn
BEIJING, 2005-07-16 -- Occupational disease, a health problem caused by exposure to workplace health hazards, is taking enormous tolls, both human and economic, on China, the China Daily said on Saturday.
Every year, the direct economic loss caused by occupational disease or work-related injuries amounts to 100 billion yuan (12 billion US dollars), while the indirect loss stands at about 200 billion yuan (24 billion US dollars), Wang Dexue, vice minister ofthe State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS), was quoted as saying.
The number of patients suffering pneumoconiosis, a disease of the lungs caused by long exposure to mineral or metallic dust, has alone reached 580,000, of which 140,000 have already died since China established an occupational disease reporting system in the 1950s.
Currently, 200 million Chinese people are at risk of occupational disease, most work in small-town industrial enterprises, the daily said.
Work-related illness has become a grave public health issue andsocial problem. Figuring out how to deal with it is of great urgency.
The incomplete prevention and treatment mechanism is to blame, experts say.
"The root problem with rampant occupational disease is our poorprevention mechanism," Wang Yi, spokesman of SAWS, China's top safety watchdog, was quoted as saying by China Business News.
China, therefore, should redouble efforts to improve its patchyoccupational disease prevention mechanism, which, Wang said, is now on the government's agenda.
Only 20 percent of workplaces that are prone to occupational disease have taken preventative measures, experts estimate.
During the planned-economy period, the staving off of occupational disease was taken on almost completely by the government, which mainly targeted workers in State-owned mines andmanufacturing or processing industries.
As the country began to move towards a market economy in the early 1980s, the government's role was gradually transferred to enterprises, but many of them have lowered input into worker safety in order to reduce operating costs.
The problem is more acute in private and some joint ventures, where workplace accidents happen frequently.
The many fatal mine accidents in recent years, most of which have happened in small mines, are a solid testament to that fact, said the paper.
Though China began to tackle the problem of occupational disease in the 1950s, it was conducted in an administrative manner until the late 1980s, when the Management Regulation on Silicosis,the first such regulation concerning occupational disease, was issued in 1989, forcing the management of occupational disease onto a legal track.
But many enterprises have not abided by the law on occupationaldisease prevention, which is considered to be a major factor behind China's grim occupational disease situation.
Therefore, the government should step up efforts to ensure thatlaws and regulations concerning occupational disease are enforced.
"If the law on occupational disease were followed to the letter, many work-related tragedies would be avoided," Wang Yaozu,a veteran occupational disease prevention expert, was quoted by Oriental Outlook Weekly as saying.
(Source: China Daily)
Still Too Many Mine Deaths, Says Chamber
Business Day (Johannesburg)
NEWS
By Charlotte Mathews
Johannesburg - 8 June 2007 - THE mining industry would have to take drastic action to address its "very disappointing" safety record, Chamber of Mines president Lazarus Zim said yesterday.
He was addressing a press conference after the third annual Chamber of Mines Health and Safety Summit. At the summit, about 200 senior mining executives discussed last year's safety statistics, which showed 199 miners were killed compared with 201 deaths in the previous year.
As a percentage of the workforce, which grew in this period, there was no change.
The diamond and platinum sectors both showed an improvement in their fatality rates but the gold and coal sectors' rates worsened.
On health and safety issues, there was still not enough information to be able to make conclusive statements about progress, the chamber said.
At the 2003 summit, the industry committed itself to reducing its fatality rate 20% a year. By December next year there should be no new cases of silicosis and no noise-induced hearing loss greater than 10% among those at risk. The ultimate target is zero fatalities, injuries or occupational diseases.
Zim said these were ambitious targets. But the lack of improvement last year was a "considerable blow to us all". Factors that influenced the death toll included an increase in the number of seismic events and the amount of moving machinery being used on the mines, as well as human behaviour.
The chamber's safety and sustainable development adviser, Sietse van der Woude, said a Mine Health and Safety Council study estimated the direct cost of each fatality at R2,7m. But there were other costs, such as the loss of breadwinners to families, and social repercussions.
"For us, the impact of the loss of lives is incalculable," Zim said.
Members of the summit debated yesterday what had to be done differently. They decided mining leadership had to become more introspective and perhaps more participatory. Leadership should
re-examine tensions between production and safety. The emphasis should be on adopting best practice, not merely sharing information.
Health had to be given greater priority. By next year the industry undertook to have sufficient data on health to track its progress.
Asked whether the industry could look at altering its mining methods to operate more safely, Van der Woude said there was no single solution. Mining methods were being looked at as well as human behavioural issues and removing people from the risk areas.
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