In an interview with International Longwall News Tiernan outlined the direction he would like the unit to take in addressing health concerns for the state’s mine workforce in coal and metal mines as well as in quarries.

He said one of the unit’s main tasks is to manage the Coal Mine Workers Health Scheme, a program that gives every coal miner in the state a medical every five years.

Health assessment and health surveillance schemes have been part of the mining industry since 1982.

“What we want to do is review the data we collect from these medicals and produce information about health trends in mine workers,” he said.

Having recently hired an extra statistician to “crunch the numbers” of the years of data, Tiernan said the unit is looking at doing more for the health of miners than has been done in the past.

“Industry is pretty keen to see some data coming out of the Coal Mine Workers Health Scheme, certainly we have been asked for that and we’re intending to get that data out over the next year or so.”

While he said the unit had not identified specific health risks, the typical ones to be looked at are dust, noise and musculoskeletal injury, but vibration was becoming more of an issue and the use of hazardous chemicals was perhaps another concern.

He indicated research on dust and its impacts, such as dust disease, is likely to be the initial focus.

“We haven’t detected any cases of silicosis in Queensland mining for several years and we don’t expect to find silicosis, but we want to look at the data and make sure that is the case.”

The unit will also implement the recommendations of a review of the Queensland mining industry's annual statistical report.

The review recommendations are aimed at providing better feedback to the mining industry on the accident and injury statistics collected.

The unit works closely with the Queensland Mines Inspectorate and has recently established the Health Improvement and Awareness Committee, which includes representation from industry and the unions.

“In the past, we focused heavily on safety. Now we want to put an equal focus on health improvement in the mining industry.”

Having also employed an occupational hygienist, Tiernan said the bolstered team numbers for the unit will allow for a greater focus on health for the state’s mining industry.

With more than 20 years in the mining industry, which included working for Mount Isa Mines, Tiernan has seen a lot of changes especially in technology.

He said longwall mining was highly productive and therefore good for the industry, but as it generated more dust than traditional mining methods, the unit was interested in assessing its impact in terms of dust exposure.

When asked about equipment design, Tiernan added that noise was another consideration.

“We are certainly interested in equipment design from the point of view of reducing dust and to reduce noise exposure,” he said.

“Noise levels, particularly in underground mines, are usually very high and most of the time noise control is from wearing hearing protection devices, the least desirable method of control.

“We want to work more with equipment manufacturers to try and produce gear that is low noise emission in the first place.”