Effectiveness of Hearing Conservation Program at a Large Surface Gold Mining Company in Ghana.

A study conducted to determine the effectiveness of a Hearing Conservation Programme (HcP) was conducted in a surface gold mining Company in Ghana. The procedure adopted included a retrospective review and comparison of individual Audiograms from 1999-2003. The analysis of data was based on 200 workers at various departments namely Pit, processing, geology, survey, engineering, utility Health and Safety. The criteria used was an average shift of 10dB or more at 2000, 3000 and 4000Hz. The result showed that 7% developed a positive and negative hearing loss. That is, hearing loss got worse in 5.5% while it has actually improved in 1.5% of the workers. Again, 45 workers had shifts of less than 10dB at frequencies, 500, 1000, 2000 and 4000Hz. Out of this (45), 27% had shifts of less than 10dB at frequencies not included in the criteria. The Hearing Conservation Programme (HCP) is effective since less than 6% of workers have additional hearing loss.