Xstrata Copper North Queensland.pdf - Mount Isa Mines

Workplace health and safety
Left: Matthew Salmons – WorkPac employee,
undergoes a periodic blood lead test at
Gemini Medical Centre
Above: Occupational Therapist – Brad
Pritchard, performs an orthopaedic hip
assessment during the Xstrata Copper preemployment
screening process
Contractor management
With contractors representing 32% of our
workforce, we continued to work with
contracting firms to assist them in developing
their own safety management standards.
Xstrata’s Contractor Portal was enhanced
in 2010 with Xstrata-engaged contracting
firms being given access to Xstrata’s
Business Principles, all site-level sustainable
development (SD) documents, commercial
terms and released site communications.
This helps improve their understanding of
our requirements and also enables them
to use the information to build their own
systems and safety management standards
in line with Xstrata’s SD requirements.
Crisis and emergency
preparation
To ensure we are prepared to respond to a
range of operational challenges, we enhanced
our training on the North Queensland
Response and Recovery Manuals which
included scenario-based exercises at Xstrata
Copper’s north Queensland sites in 2010.
The Mount Isa Mines copper operations
participated in the North West Minerals
Province Mines Rescue Challenge at Outback
at Isa and in total, six teams from mining
companies across north west Queensland
took part in the challenge.
Challenging and realistic scenarios were
created for participants and they were
presented with various emergency scenarios.
Each team was judged on its proficiency
at dealing with the situation. Events are
designed to provide scenarios that could
happen on or around a mine site and
include drills involving road accident rescue,
multi-casualty, search and rescue, and
vertical rescue, and in 2010 the Queensland
Government Emergency Services assisted with
the organisation of this challenge. Xstrata
Mount Isa Mines’ B Crew won the overall
prize for the competition.
Occupational health
In 2010 the Health Risk Management and
Occupational Hygiene teams formed an
alliance to identify and manage common
issues. Initially developed to address
occupational dermatitis, the Health Hygiene
linkage has expanded to include occupational
hygiene hazards in the Job Role Criteria
and health surveillance programs. The links
between health and hygiene have been
broadened to include third party review to
validate and strengthen our ongoing health
surveillance program to mitigate potential
harm through occupational exposures to
our workers.
This has allowed a sharing of information
between the health and hygiene work groups
and utilisation of knowledge and skills within
health and injury management, resulting in
a strengthened process to identify potential
hazards and associated health and hygiene
risks with our workers. It has also given us
the opportunity to proactively manage and
address issues as they are identified.
During the year, our health promotion
campaigns continued across our north
Queensland operations. Campaigns focused
on serious diseases dengue fever and H1N1
and health and support information on
obesity, smoking, alcohol and drugs, fatigue,
nutrition, men’s and women’s health, mental
health, hearing conservation and shift work.
The health promotions website was improved
and received on average around 560 hits
a month.
In 2010 we commenced an Occupational
Hygiene characterisation process. The aim
was to systematically identify and risk rank all
hygiene hazards based on their potential to
cause harm. This information has been used
to direct resources to control hazards that
pose the highest risk.
32 XSTRATA COPPER NORTH QUEENSLAND