HYDERABAD: The lungs of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) sweepers are failing and deserves immediate attention of the state government.
The issue was brought to light through a study in which Pulmonary Function Tests (PFT) were conducted on 86 people working as GHMC sweepers for five years including 32 men and 54 women aged between 25 and 50 who do not have the habit of smoking. The PFT were also conducted on 86 individuals of almost same height and weight who are not exposed to dust as part of their work like nurses, teachers, IT professionals and office clerks, who served as the control group.
The test results revealed that the PFT values of GHMC sweepers were ‘significantly’ lower than the values of control group. It also revealed that the functionality of lungs of women sweepers was more severely affected than that of men.
For example, one of the tests conducted as part of PFT was Peak Expiratory Flow Rate (PEFR), which is a test conducted to measure how fast a person can breathe out, to check lung functioning. The volume of air that a person can breathe out in PEFR test is given in litres/second(l/sec).
It was found that the average PEFR value of men and women who do not work in occupations where they are not exposed to dust was close to 6 l/sec and 5 l/sec.
The average PEFR value among GHMC workers was drastically lower at 5.2 l/sec and 3.7 l/sec, indicating that the capacity of their lungs to store air had decreased over the years to almost half the normal capacity due to regular exposure to dust.
The study was conducted by Dr Ayesha Juhi, Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology at Apollo Institute of Medical Science and Research.
The study warned, “The chronic prolonged exposure of street dust, which is a complex mixture of soil, automobile exhaust particles, plant fragments, animal waste, domestic waste and other biological materials acting as harmful irritants to the respiratory tract leading to cough and other respiratory symptoms, may further develop irreversible lung impairment.”
C Mallesh, who heads the GHMC contract workers union affiliated to Central Industrial Trade Union (CITU), says, “Disposable masks should be thrown away after single use but for a month, GHMC gives sweepers just around 4-5 face masks. Most of the times face masks and gloves are given only on special occasions if a VIP is coming.
A large number of sweepers have not even been provided with containers to carry waste or ESI health cards for getting regular health check up.”
When contacted, the GHMC blamed sweepers for not wearing masks being provided to them