Occupational safety and health

The medical working group is a special interest focus group developed within AngloGold Health Service (AHS) in the mid-1990s. Its members are drawn from the specialist physicians from the hospitals within the AHS - two from Western Deep Levels Hospital from West Wits and two from the West Vaal Hospital at Vaal River. As the need arises, the group co-opts members from other departments for their particular specialised input. The group meets monthly to discuss, and act on, clinical matters that are of importance to AHS, the patients they serve, and AngloGold Ashanti, the primary funder of the health service.

Says Alistair Calver, the current chair of the working group, "The medical working group is the custodian of the AHS medicines list, which is a comprehensive list of medications and treatment used in the management of the patients who receive their health care from our service. The list is a dynamic document, the development and maintenance of which requires input from a wide variety of specialists, medical practitioners and pharmacists. Two of the overriding principles involved in placing any medication on the list is that it should provide cost effective treatment for the patients, and be in line with appropriate academic protocol."

Defining treatment protocols and making them fit with the occupational health environment of the gold mining industry has been an additional function performed. Protocols for the management of epilepsy, diabetes, pneumonia, cyanide poisoning, heat illness, and tuberculosis (TB) within the mining industry are some of the most important. With respect to TB, AHS has some of the most detailed statistical and medical data available in the world today. This is used to monitor and guide the TB control programme within the company.

Says Calver, "According to the World Health Organization, South Africa ranks within the top seven countries in respect of TB levels among the general population. Specifically in the gold mining industry we have some of the highest known TB rates in the world today. The combination of the expanding HIV epidemic and increasing levels of silicosis in a workforce with longer work experience have both individually and together, contributed to the higher levels of TB. These facts highlight the importance of a combined approach to the management and treatment of HIV in association with a high-level TB control programme for the mines, where, in turn, dust levels need to be engineered to a minimum. The medical working group plays an important role - together with other health care practitioners within the company - in ensuring that both TB and HIV programmes run concurrently with maximum effect."

The medical working group has also had to take into account the impact and possible impact that arises out of the threat of epidemic illnesses occurring in other parts of the world. Malaria is one such threat that has a significant effect on all the AngloGold Ashanti operations in Africa. With the development of the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in the Far East in 2002, the Group was acutely aware of the possible consequences such an epidemic would have if it spread within the confines of the South African operations. As part of its disease response function, the Group pro-actively developed contingency plans to handle such an epidemic, which, by necessity, would involve co-operation with the Department of Health and state facilities.

"It is an additional function of the medical working group to ensure that high standards are maintained in the activities of individual health care workers, and collectively at a medical departmental level. This ensures we provide optimal care for the patients that are either employees or their dependants of AngloGold Ashanti," Calver concludes.