By Alyse Edwards
Mining companies are being accused of not doing enough to protect workers from the risk of developing serious spine and reproductive disorders through working with heavy machinery.
The hazard from prolonged periods of time workers spend in a vibrating machine is known as whole body vibration.
Occupational health therapist Barbara McPhee has researched the hazard and said it can be caused by a variety of machinery.
“You’ve got rough road conditions, you might have an old machine,” she told The World Today.
“Some machines like bulldozers, when they’re doing particular tasks like ripping can be very, very rough and sometimes intermittent use of these machines is no problem at all but long-term exposures can be a problem.”
She said the permanent health effects of whole body vibration include numbing of nerves, gut problems, spinal injuries and damage to a woman’s ability to conceive.
“It seems that the spine fatigues with this constant vibration but there are other types of disorders like gut disorders and circulatory disorders that may occur as a result of vibration,” she said.
But Ms McPhee said the hazard was not well understood and mining production was considered more important.
“I do think that production is a mindset in mining. Sometimes production will take precedence over other things that may actually have long-term implications,” she said.
“It’s very hard sometimes to make the call if you’re not aware of it or if you don’t understand it very well.”
Former worker says production targets ‘take over’
Andrew, who declined to give his surname, is one of the thousands of mine workers who have been exposed to whole body vibration.
He said his health started to deteriorate after seven years of operating heavy machinery at central Queensland coal mines, spending about 11 hours in a machine on a shift.
“I think personally that the industry looks after the worker’s individual safety until such time as production targets aren’t being met, then the people just get pushed to the side and production targets sort of take over,” he said.
Experts have said the risks associated with whole body vibration can be reduced with regular breaks, but Andrew said that does not always happen.
“They do want you in the machine, moving the whole time,” he said.
Libby, who also wants to keep her identity secret, said female staff at the coal mine she works at must sign a waiver acknowledging the risks of vibrations on their reproductive health.
“It’s not that women aren’t allowed to operate the track dozers, it’s only recommended that we don’t due to the harsh vibrations it sends through your body and this is known to cause effects on a woman’s reproductive system,” she said.
She said the women who do operate machines tend to have already had children.
The Department of Natural Resources and Mines, which oversees occupational health and safety on Queensland mine sites, said in a statement that industry has been productive in measures to better manage whole body vibration, including widespread testing of equipment on mine sites for whole body vibration levels and education provided to operators.
It said a number of sites had reviewed their blasting policies and procedures to control the material being handled by the bulldozers.
Some sites are trialling continuous monitoring of whole body vibration, but many workers like Andrew are not seeing any action being taken.
“If you mention that something is wrong with a piece of equipment or if you’ve got an issue they just give you another machine and maybe someone else will drive that one … so I don’t think enough is really being done to tell you the truth,” he said.
The Department declined a request for interview but in a statement said it would consider whole body vibration when it develops a five-year plan for mining health priorities next year.