185
The Women’s Knowledge of Mining Diseases and the Working
Conditions
The women had no knowledge of asbestos-related diseases during their stay in Wittenoom.
They knew from the men’s stories that work in the mine and the mill was very difficult. One of
Nazzarena Mirandola’s boarders had told her that he could not take working
in the mine and
left. She explained: “
Morivano giovani.....che sa che l’amianto.....non è tanto.....
”
66
She did
not end this sentence, but her comment regarding what she had been told by her boarder
had merged with what had become known later, rather than what she knew at the
time about
the hazards of asbestos. When I asked her what the workers knew, she repeated that “They
didn’t know! They didn’t know”! When her husband had gone to Australian Blue Asbestos to
apply for his job, “nothing was said.” Her understanding at the time was:
These things [illnesses] didn’t exist. They had terrible
coughs from going underground. These boys explained
to me, especially the younger ones... poor things... They
did two or three years and then they returned to Italy...
They didn’t work long because of their health... They told
me that underground there was a dust which was
incredible.
Nazzarena recalls that the men did speak among themselves when they saw a
worker being sent to Perth due to a cough
he had developed, “because by then he had
tuberculosis. That was known”. They would say, “if we are not careful we’ll end up like
Angelo”. They all thought he had tuberculosis.
67
The detail in
the description of the mine, which Lina Tagliaferri was able to give,
suggests it was a topic of conversation with her husband.
The mine you don’t enter standing. You walk in to the
main corridor but when you got to the stope you either
went on your knees or crouched over because they didn’t
make the beams high. They made them low because
they only pulled out where there was good material
(ore)… They had pillars to support… every now and
again… eh, eh,… it was horrible.
She, like the other wives, did not know about the health dangers of asbestos. “No one knew
of the damage it [asbestos] brought. Because if someone had known.....(her daughter Maria
66
They were dying young…..you know that asbestos…..is not very…
67
Interview with Nazzarena Mirandola, Italy, November 2008.
186
continues for her) no one would have gone there.”
68
By November 1957, seven years after
their arrival, Lina’s husband had become very ill. She was impressed neither by the hospital
facilities nor the doctor’s ability to treat her husband: “
era un ospedale di poco”.
69
He had
come home from work one day with a fever similar to influenza. She remembered it had been
a Tuesday. Wednesday morning he had gone to the hospital and was given some tablets. By
Friday he was back at the hospital because he felt no better. The doctor changed his tablets.
On the Monday, he was worse. He went back to the hospital and this time was admitted.
They gave him a penicillin injection. By the following Tuesday he
had deteriorated again and
it was only at Lina’s insistence that her husband was sent to Perth. He had missed the
Tuesday flight. Planes left Wittenoom every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. On Thursday
the doctor sent Lina’s husband to the Royal Perth Hospital.
It was fortunate he went to the Royal Perth. They saved
him. They saved him with a course of penicillin
injections… If instead of the Thursday flight, he had taken
the Saturday one, no one would have saved him from
Karakatta.
70
Lina lacked confidence in the Wittenoom doctor. In her opinion,
he was not experienced in
lung diseases or surgery. While she was adamant about the need for her husband to go to
Perth for treatment, there was no knowledge of what was in store for him because of his
exposure to asbestos. She remembers the visits from the mobile
x-ray unit, but no one died
of an asbestos-related disease while Lina was in Wittenoom during the 1950s.
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