Public Higher Education Bulletin

The state of Queensland, Australia has more than 30,000 active coal miners and thousands more former miners who are at risk for lung disease known as Black Lung. Black Lung is the common name for coal workers pneumoconiosis (CWP), a disease caused by long-term exposure to coal dust. In the mid 1980?s Australia medical surveillance of coal miners was changed to a fitness for work program. Monitoring for Black Lung Disease was significantly reduced. This led to the erroneous conclusion that Black Lung was eradicated. In November 2015 Black Lung was confirmed in miners and this lead to thousands of Queensland miners being checked for black lung disease. Those in the industry (mining companies, unions, and government) fear there are far more cases yet to emerge and that former miners may have died from black lung but were misdiagnosed.

The volume of image reports (which each need two reads from different B Readers) required by DNRME is a minimum of 800 (1,600 reads) per month. If the minimum is not met, the payment per report is reduced by 40%. The client also requested in July 2018 that the number of reports returned per month increase to 2,000 or more (4,000 plus reads) within the coming weeks, and that the turn-around time for returning reports be decreased (i.e., reduced time from receiving a miner?s x-ray to returning the ILO classification report). Dr. Koelsch's B reading contributions will ensure that the contractual obligations and the sponsor's expectations are met/exceeded and that revenue is not reduced or the contract jeopardized.

The University has determined that this purchase is only economically available from this source because the items are required for research and no other source is able to meet the researcher's documented needs.