Costs of occupational lung disease in South African gold mining

Abstract

This paper analyses the costs of gold mining related occupational lung disease to the mining industry, the state health services and the mine labour sending communities. The extent of the liability of unpaid occupational lung disease compensation is estimated. It is shown that there is a high prevalence of uncompensated occupational lung disease in ex-mine-workers and that much of the cost of this disease is being externalised from the industry. The total cost, both internalised and externalised, of gold mining related lung disease represents 6 per cent of the 1996 wage bill and 2.6 per cent of the gold mining industry's contribution to South Africa's GDP in 1996. Better information on costs is critical for planning profitable and safe gold mining and also for the planning and budgeting of health care services.