Occupational diseases threaten Vietnamese workers

His lungs were found to be covered with silica after 17 years working underground as a coal miner in the northern province of Quang Ninh. He did not know he contracted silicosis until he underwent a medical check-up at the beginning of this year.

“My lung washing liquid looks dark and scary,” he said.

According to Le Quang Chung, deputy director of the hospital, the Coal and Mineral Hospital has so far washed out the lungs of more than 2,000 people with silicosis, most of whom are workers in the coal and mineral mining sector.

“Silicosis-infected patients cannot recover perfectly from the infection as the result of pulmonary fibrosis. Without proper treatment, the disease might result in complications which reduce patients’ lifespan,” Chung said.

Exhausted with burdensome work as a bricklayer for a construction company under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Dinh Thi Hoa, 54, living in Hanoi’s Hai Ba Trung district, asked for work leave in 1994.

After 19 years working under unusual weather conditions, pollution and constant changes of work locations, she suffers from respiratory symptoms, permanent muscle and bone pain, and sometimes high-blood pressure.

Most workers at the company quit their jobs at the age of 40 due to declining health, after 20 years of working, Hoang Thi Duong, a company worker, living in Hai Ba Trung district’s Quynh Mai ward, said.

They are just a few among the workers catching diseases while working in risk-exposed environments. However, not many of them have ever heard of this referred to as “occupational disease”.

According to medical experts, an occupational disease is any chronic ailment that occurs as a result of work or occupational activity.

In Vietnam, mining, construction, mechanics, chemicals manufacturing and use are the sectors with the highest number of workers contracting occupational illnesses, Nhan Dan (People) newspaper reported.

According to a study by the newspaper, over the past five years, 24% of workers nationwide asked for sick leave, much higher than in previous years.

More than 70% of miners and construction workers have their health status classified as second and third rank (with first being the highest).

So far up to 447 workers nationwide are suspected to have contracted occupational diseases that relate to asbestos, a mineral commonly used in construction, mining and industrial sectors, and is the leading “culprit” of silicosis and various cancers.

Experts predict that asbestos-related ailments will be on the rise over the coming decades as its incubation period lasts for up to 30 years. So symptoms might not develop until workers have retired.