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Creating awareness for the workers' health in Australia's tunnel construction sites

    Roger N.R. Denton

     

    This story is about Kate Cole, a Certified Occupational Hygienist with degrees in Science, Engineering, and Occupational Hygiene and almost two decades of experience working for construction prokects in Australia, USA and Hong Kong. She is also the Sydney Metro Health Director.

    This article is about her creating awareness in the Australian tunnelling projects following her learning work trips to Norway, Switzerland, UK and USA, all prominent tunnelling countries. Her trips hasve been financed by the Australian branch of Winston Churchill Trust foundation.

    I've got captivated by this article because it underlines the importance of dust exposure in the construction sector. From what I understand, she not only helped create awareness for exposure to the carcinogenic dust known as respirable crystalline silica, or “silica dust” and its inevitable consequence of incurable diseases including silicosis and lung cancer, she also helped place checks and controls to monitor the silica dust exposure in tunnelling sites. Undoubtedly she is only one of the many parties working in the field for ensuring this important health issue and the big prize evidently goes to the Australian Tunnelling Society’s Air Quality Working Group whose reference material is mentioned in the article. In any case, we need more people like Kate Cole.

    This is the article

    https://www.businessnews.com.au/article/Keeping-workers-safe-in-unprecedented-infrastructure-boom

    and this is the original Winston Churchill Trust news about Kate Cole

    https://www.churchilltrust.com.au/news/kate-cole-shares-her-fellowship-experience/

    Have a great weekend in these uncertain times. Take very care of yourselves.

     

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