RADIOGRAPHS OF MINERS

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28429, 8 November 1957, Page 16

RADIOGRAPHS OF MINERS

Health Department Plans

(New Zealand Press Association) GREYMOUTH. Nov. 7.

The Health Department hopes for a big response when it conducts its programme of chest radiographs for all miners and former miners in the Grey Valley area, in about March of next year.

The big programme—described yesterday by the tuberculosis medical officer for the Christchurch Health District, Dr. F. A de Hamel —is the first comprehensive survey of its kind in New Zealand, and is an important step towards discovering the incidence of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis. Dr. de Hamel, who has already conducted preliminary investigations in the West Coast mining district, said: “We hope to be able to get some other industry—that is, non-mining—into the group, too, so that we’ve got some comparison.

“Obviously, before one can determine whether miners are at hazard, one must be certain that other occupations are not equally as dangerous. “For this purpose,” he said, “we have ordered from overseas, some expensive new equipment especially designed for investigating miners’ lungs. The cost of the new equipment is nearly £1000.” In these new moves to track down the incidence of pneumoconiosis—a disease of the lungs caused by inhaling mineral or metallic dust—Dr. de Hamel has already been assured of support from miners’ unions and mine managements in the Grey Valley area.

“We hope to combine with the X-ray survey next year, tests of lung functions—that is, tests to determine whether, in fact, working in coal mines makes a miner more breathless than workers in non-mining industries,” Dr. de Hamel said.