An investment of R42-million was placed into a project for a medical aid for miners on Thursday.
This followed the signing of an agreement by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the South African Chamber of Mines, who injected the money into the project, and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
The agreement aims to improve public health facilities that will be largely utilised by ex-miners in South Africa and neighbouring countries, for the benefit of medical examinations.
”Current and former mine workers are entitled to benefit occupational medical examinations on a regular basis,” the minister said in Braamfontein, Johannesburg.
”Over the years, we have been able to ensure compliance with this legislative requirement despite the many challenges that we have encountered.”
She said the challenges involved insufficient investment in public health facilities.
”This lack of sufficient investment in the sector has had a significant impact on our task of ensuring that ex-mine workers indeed had access to proper medical examinations that would ultimately allow them access to certain benefits as a result of their inability to work.
”The second challenge has had to do with the role of the mining industry itself to commit resources that would ensure maximum compliance with legislation … It is for this reason that I feel greatly encouraged with the signing today of this memorandum of agreement.”
She said the investment would also strengthen occupational health units (OHU) in public hospitals and that The Employment Bureau of Africa (Teba) would indicate where ex-miners were recruited from and where they now resided.
OHU facilities in provinces such as the Free State, Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga, Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland would also be strengthened, Tshabalala-Msimang said.
She added that the Department of Health would take over the funding of the initiative two years from now, to ensure its sustainability and also to ensure that no site would be forced to close its doors due to lack of funding.
The R42-million will go towards procuring equipment such as X-ray machines and soon the department would be engaging with provincial health departments, with a view to developing human resources plans to enhance performance.
”St Benedictine Hospital in Nongoma has been chosen as a pilot site for this project. Our choice of this facility was informed primarily by the fact that the northern parts of KwaZulu-Natal were the largest recruiting areas for mine labour after the Eastern Cape, based on the figures from Teba.” – Sapa