The state of health and safety of miners in SA

Yesterday in Parliament, Minister for Mineral Resources, Ngoako Ramatholdi, in his brief introduction to his Department’s briefing, told the Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources that miners’ “health and safety is a priority”. He added that a Mine Health and Safety Summit hosted by his Department and others was being planned and was due to take place in November 2014.

Of the Department of Mineral Resources’ overall budget for 2014/15 of R1 471 291 000, the promotion of mine health and safety programme gets a R168 million slice of the pie. The spending focus is on compliance with the Mine Health and Safety Act of 1996 by conducting inspections, audits, inquiries and investigations.

In his presentation, the Department’s David Masisa explained that according to their research the health of miners is generally improving. While 1 778 cases of silicosis were diagnosed in miners in 2008, the figure has declined to 1 420 in 2012. Furthermore, while there were 4 639 miners diagnosed with Pulmonary TB in 2008, 2 838 miners were diagnosed with the disease in 2013. Cases of Noise Induced Hearing loss have also declined and there are fewer cases of asbestosis, but that is mainly because asbestos mines were closed 20 years ago.

Masisa said that since the Mine Health and Safety Council Summit in 2011, mining companies were now reporting annually to the Department of Mineral Resources on programmes they had implemented in relation to HIV and TB.

Mining accident-related fatalities have also dropped from 615 in 1993 to 93 in 2013. Masisa added that his department was looking into “worker tracking technology” to assist during emergency situations.

During the question session ANC MP Mandla Mandela asked what the contributing factors were to fatalities. Masisa explained that in South Africa there are deep mines that can hamper rescues and that the accidents are usually caused by rock falls, rock bursts, fires, transport, or machinery such as conveyor belts, but research was conducted on this and improved technology had been put in place resulting in a decline in the fatality rate.

Later, DA MP James Lorimer said, “During the SONA debate the Minister of Health talked about health initiatives aimed at improving the health of mine workers. How is the Department of Mineral Resources involved?

Mineral Resources Deputy Minister Godfrey Oliphant said that his Department was working particularly closely with the Department of Health on their TB and HIV programmes. He added that “GeneXpert technology” had been introduced at health facilities in mining communities that had seen the time of test results reduced to two hours instead of a week.

During his SONA debate speech in May, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said, “There are 41 810 cases of active TB in South African mines every year…. the highest instance of TB in any working population in the world”.

After outlining the situation, he told the President that his Department had a plan to address the problem, including a Global Fund supported by the likes of the Gates Foundation that will go towards treating TB and MDR TB in vulnerable groups, such as mine workers.

Motsoaledi added that they would be deploying the newest technology for the diagnosis of TB, the GeneXpert technology referenced by Oliphant. He said that outreach teams consisting of nurses and community health care workers were screening people living in mining communities to assist in the diagnosis of TB. As well as establishing some MDR facilities in the country, the Department of Health was also setting up one-stop service centres to treat silicosis and TB.

“Together with the Departments of Labour and Health for the last year we have been developing one stop centres… in the Northern Cape, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape … every former miner must have access to free health care every two years,” said Oliphant.