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Category: Coal / Respiratory Diseases / Federal Parliament / Mining (Rural) / Mining Industry

Coal-miner disease resurgence the subject of Senate inquiry

Friday, 12 Feb 2016 04:32:23 | Jonathan Hair

Novak Djokovic of Serbia stomps on his racket while playing Roberto Bautista Agut from Spain during their US Open 2015 fourth round men's singles match at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on September 6, 2015 in New York.

A Senate inquiry will investigate the sudden reappearance of the deadly coal miners' disease known as black lung.

Coal workers' pneumoconiosis, or black lung, is a condition caused by breathing in excessive levels of coal dust.

Until recently, it was thought to have been eradicated from Australia. But late last year, the ABC revealed the disease had made a comeback.

Six Queensland coal mine workers have recently been diagnosed with the deadly condition.

Several of these victims worked in mines in Queensland's Bowen Basin.

'I can't stand it anymore'


Retired coal miner Percy Verrall used to be a fit man but is now struggling for every breath. He spent most of his working life in Queensland's Ipswich coalfields and is now paying the price.

The Senate select committee on health will probe the issue by holding public hearings next month in Brisbane and in the north Queensland city of Mackay.

Committee chairperson senator Deborah O'Neill said they had been tasked with investigating why the disease had re-emerged.

"There are questions around it and that's what we will be asking — how has this happened, what's going on, is there adequate support for people whose diagnosis happens, what about prevention," she said.

"This particular matter is of great concern right across the country.

What is 'black lung'?

Pneumoconiosis is a potentially fatal disease caused by long exposure to coal dust, more commonly known as "black lung" because those with the disease have lungs that look black instead of a healthy pink.

Black lung most often stems from working in the coal industry or in the manufacturing of graphite or man-made carbon products and has no known cure.

The risk of getting black lung depends on how much time has been spent around coal dust.

There are two types of black lung; simple and complicated.

There are relatively few symptoms associated with simple black lung, also known as coal worker's pneumoconiosis (CWP), and the prognosis is usually good.

But CWP can progress into the more complicated progressive massive fibrosis (PMF), the symptoms of which may include a long-term cough and shortness of breath.

There is no cure for black lung, but doctors may be able to treat complications caused by the disease.

In 2013, coal worker's pneumoconiosis had killed 25,000 people, according to UK medical journal The Lancet.

Source: University of Kentucky, US National Library of Medicine and The Lancet

"It's captured people's imaginations to think that a disease that people thought was long gone has re-emerged after 30 years."

She said the committee could invite witnesses from across the country.

"We have had a great response and we will certainly we calling on some state bodies," Senator O'Neill said.

Senator O'Neill said Mackay would be a focal point of their investigation.

"Reports have centred on Mackay as an area where this is a particular problem," she said.

"We'll try to look at the evidence and decide what needs further to be done, or if we can actually get a report into the public place fairly quickly," Ms O'Neill said.

CFMEU mining division president Stephen Smyth welcomed the inquiry, saying the union had spent several months lobbying for an investigation.

Mr Smyth said he hoped relevant organisations would be held to account.

"It's across the board; we believe that the regulator needs to be there to give evidence (along with) the coal companies themselves, some of the health professionals and the radiologists, and of course the workers themselves, the unions, and those who are involved in the unions," he said.

"Everybody who's been working in the industry, and is still involved in the industry, whether you're a company, a union, the regulator, or a health professional, you should be prepared to turn up, give evidence and participate in the process.

"We want to fix up what we see as the failures of the system, in relation to the monitoring and screening."

AustraliaPlus


 

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