Black lung patients face a long wait for compensation
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E-mail China Daily, March 25, 2013
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Chen Jingyu, a deputy to the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, submitted a motion to the legislative body urging medical aid for black lung patients during the annual session of the NPC earlier this month. His proposal was signed by 30 other deputies.
Chen, who is also deputy head of the Wuxi People's Hospital in Jiangsu province, said he has seen too many workers stricken by black lung traveling thousands of kilometers, using money they borrowed, in search of a cure.
Chen said he expects the government will give more attention to the plight of workers with black lung disease and take action to help them.
"Our motion calls on the health authority to include black lung disease into the public medical insurance system for residents and ensure that patients can receive reimbursement of at least 70 percent of their medical expenses," he said.
Such measures should be targeted at sick workers who cannot find their former employers or provide employment records, he added.
He also proposed the government provide monthly subsidies for black lung patients since they lose the ability to work and often fall into poverty after they contract the disease.
"Not only do miners run a high risk of contracting the disease. Traffic policemen, workers in gemstone factories and others exposed to dust all face such risk," he said.
"Precautions are important. I hope the government will tighten its supervision on employers so that a safer working environment can be created for workers," he said.
A regulation released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security in 2011 requires its nationwide grassroots bureaus to use the work injury insurance fund to pay workers' medical expenses if their employers did not provide workers' insurance coverage and refused to take responsibility for treatment fees.
Then bureaus can order employers to pay those fees, according to the regulation.
Tang Chun, an expert with China Occupational Safety and Health Association, said farmers-turned-migrant-workers are most vulnerable to occupational diseases such as black lung.
Nearly 29 percent of the 250 million migrant workers in China had work injury insurance by the end of last year, according to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.
"Greater efforts should be made to ensure wider coverage of workers by the insurance," he said.
At the same time, some NGOs are taking action to help black lung patients.
The Pneumoconiosis Assistance Foundation, founded in 2011, has raised more than 6.2 million yuan to cure 608 patients.
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