Health Issues of Mining Workers: Provisions and Challenges in Social Work Perspectives

This paper assessed the impact of mining operations on the health of mining workers. Additionally, the challenges faced by mine workers due to health issues and provisions arranged by mines for workers’ healthcare were analysed from the social work and human rights perspectives. A cross-sectional study was conducted in a mineral-rich district of Odisha, India, by covering 257 households consisting of 296 mine workers of both public and private sector mines. The result showed mining operations had a critical negative environmental and occupational health impact on workers. Diseases like colds, cough, fever, bronchitis, jaundice, acute respiratory infection, gallbladder stone, blood pressure, skin disease, tuberculosis, and joint pain occurred frequently with greater intensity along with the deformity and death caused by mining accidents. Against the losses, the workers hardly receive compensation as mandated by Mining Act, 1952 and Director General of Mines Safety guidelines due to their lack of information, casual job contracts, poor implementation of mining law, lack of monitoring of mining activities by the government, and the profit-maximizing behaviour of the mines. In this context, the study followed the human rights and workers’ right principles and provisions of United Nations-Human Right Council, World Health Organization, International Labour Organization, and the Mining Act, 1952, and recommends a set of principles, i.e. employment of an adequate number of qualified health social workers/human right professionals both at micro and macro levels, and formulates an appropriate plan to ensure good health and well-being to mining workers. Additionally, strict implementation of mining laws, periodic social and environmental impact assessment, permanent job contracts to workers, social protection and security of workers, and creation of adequate health infrastructure in the mining locality is essential.