Chinese mining firm refuses to pay employee’s medical bills after occupational accident

A Chinese mining company, South Mines, has reportedly declined to foot the medical bill of an employee who was burnt by gas while doing his job, resulting in the accident victim being discharged from hospital a day after admission with no further medical attention.

Meanwhile, Executive Director at Centre for Natural Resource Governance, Farai Maguwu who visited the victim has since blamed it on the government, saying it should set standards on how they want their people to be treated by foreigners extracting resources in the country.

“Received from Hwange: ‘This guy was burnt by gas at a Chinese mine, South Mines, two days ago and was discharged after a day because the company claimed they can’t pay hospital bills. Just been to see him and spoke to him.

“Chinese are not the problem. Government is. It is the government that must set standards of how they want their people to be treated by foreigners extracting our resources,” he said.

According to the law, companies should meet medical bills for occupational accident victims.

In Zimbabwe, there are a number of other sources of compensation for injury and property loss contained in various statutory provisions. The most outstanding of these is the scheme that provides compensation to workers injured in the workplace.

This scheme is now part of the National Social Security system and the detailed provisions relating to this scheme are contained in the National Social Security Authority (Accident Prevention and Workers’ Compensation Scheme) SI 68 of 1990.

This scheme is funded by payments by employers into a central fund. These payments are assessed on the basis of the particular class of business and calculated against the wages earned by employees.

The compensation fund is then used to compensate workers (or their dependants if they die or are unable to work anymore) who are injured in accidents that occur whilst they are in the course of their employment or who contract certain specified work-related diseases.

This system of compensation is a no-fault compensation scheme in that the injured worker does not have to prove any negligence on the part of the employer before he is entitled to compensation.

All he has to establish is that the injury occurred at the workplace when he was in the course of his employment.

-Zwnews