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Migrant workers offered free health exams in Guangzhou

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-07-10 13:49

Guangzhou, capital city of the economically-developed Guangdong Province in southern China, will oversee the expenditure of 3.5 million yuan ($512,445) for free physical examinations for 10,000 migrant workers in the remaining months of this year.

The exams will be offered to those who work in industries vulnerable to occupational diseases and to those who have participated in the city's work-related injury insurance program.

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"As a cooperative program with the United Nations Development Program, we have chosen Baiyun as a pilot district. Some 10,000 migrant workers there will get free overall physical examinations as well as physical examinations for some of the specific items that relate to the risky industries where they work," China Daily quoted Zheng Yuhua, deputy director of the municipal labor and social security bureau of Guangzhou, as saying.

The pilot program will focus on those industries that use organic solvents in the production of plastics, electronics and leather.

The city will offer a similar program next year with the exams subsidized, the official said.

"Bosses need to pay no more than 30 percent of the charge of the physical examination and we will subsidize the rest," he said.

The program's goal is to benefit more than 30,000 migrant workers by the year 2012.