University of Queensland wins $600k grant to help dust-lung injured get back to work

For miners and stone cutters given a dust lung diagnosis, it can be a huge mental blow. Now a study aims to work out how to best get people back in the workforce, noting office jobs aren’t the best when you want to work with your hands.

Grace Grace visiting the Chandler Sports Precinct , on Thursday 30th May 2024 - Photo Steve Pohlner

A Queensland university will interview 120 people at a cost of $600,000 to work out the best way to get miners and stone cutters back into work after life changing dust lung injuries.

Dust lung injuries overwhelmingly affect tradespeople who cut engineered stone without proper safety equipment and ventilation, and mine workers.

Thanks to a $600,000 grant from the Miles government, the University of Queensland study will speak to workers, along with occupational therapists and return-to-work specialists to find out what works, and what doesn’t to keep people employed.

UQ Sustainable Minerals Institute Research Fellow, Nikky LaBranche said for miners there are options to stay on at the mines and complete administrative work, but it’s not always smooth.

“For the engineered stone industry, where the businesses are much smaller, it is much harder as there are often no jobs out of the dust that people can move into,” she said.

“Another consideration is that many of these workers chose a trade because they want to be out working with their hands, not sitting at a desk or behind a computer all day.”

Resources Safety and Health Queensland is pushing for more current or former miners to take up free lung health checks to screen for Mine Dust Lung Diseases. Picture: RSHQ Worker Information Booklet.

Minister for Industrial Relations, Grace Grace, said the goal is to catch the diseases earlier, then get people back into work faster without continued exposure.

“That’s why we committed at the election to fund research to help prevent these diseases, to pick them up earlier in affected workers, and to find more effective treatments,” she said.

It’s not the only action the Queensland government has taken on dust lung injuries. In May, Harbour Road Medical in Mackay was suspended from undertaking coal lung tests after a Resources Safety and Health Queensland audit found its tests were ‘substandard’.

The government body had to call and notify 135 affected people.

And from July 1, all engineered stone products will be officially banned in Queensland.

The grant is part of a previously-announced commitment to fund up to five million dollars for medical research to improve the health and wellbeing of workers suffering from occupational dust lung diseases such as silicosis and coal workers’ pneumoconiosis.

In 2022, the first round was awarded to Queensland researchers, including interstate and international research partners.

For Ms LaBranche, the study opens the possibility of finding the perfect alternative industry for dust-affected workers to transition into.

“There is also a psychological component that comes with being diagnosed with a potentially life-changing disease, which is why the project includes Dr Kirsten Way from the UQ School of Psychology,” she noted.

Originally published as University of Queensland wins $600k grant to help dust-lung injured get back to work