quent
loss of manpower and in some cases irreparable damage to the
individuals concerned; and we have established a system of routine
health inspection at all mine hostels under the control of trained and
qualified sanitarians. Similar services and welfare centres are about
to be established in the mine Native villages. We are also building a
very large hospital at Wclkom for our Native employees and their
dependants, which will incorporate the most modern equipment for the
treatment of all forms of disease and accident, and which will be
staffed by specialists in the various branches of medicine and surgery.
These
improvements do not exhaust the possibilities of ensuring that the
highest standards of health are attained among our Native employees,
and it is as much in our own interests as in the interests of the
Natives themselves that we should be continuously active in applying
within the industry all the latest approved ideas that current
developments in medical science and hygiene may suggest.
Higher
standards of comfort and hygiene in Native housing and accommodation,
better feeding and nutrition and better health and medical services
will all combine to make employment in our gold-mining industry
increasingly attractive to Natives themselves and to those authorities
in other territories outside the Union who have the welfare of their
Native populations at heart. . . .102
♦ XXXIV ♦
Proud
though Ernest Oppenheimer was of the part played by Anglo American
Corporation in the development of the Orange Free State gold-field, he
was also rightly proud of the part which Anglo American Corporation had
played in the opening up, first of the Far East Rand, and subsequently
of the 'West Wits Line' and the Klerksdorp area. Whatever might be the
picture in the future, developments on the Rand, he thought, should not
be overlooked. Speaking on the site of the Welkom Mine, when he turned
the first sod of the No. 2 Shaft in 1950, he pointed out to his
hsteners that
102
The design and lay-out of the hospital was decided upon after a
comprehensive tour of overseas hospitals, particularly in Sweden, Great
Britain and the United States of America, undertaken by Dr. J. H. G.
van Blommcstein, the medical consultant of Anglo American Corporation.
As recommended by an eminent Swedish authority, standardization of
materials and equipment was the keynote of the plans and this greatly
contributed to economy. 'Medical and technical visitors from overseas
have stated that they could not build a hospital to compare with the
Ernest Oppenheimer Hospital for less than £3,500 a bed, yet this
hospital, with all its amenities and modern equipment, cost less than
£1,130 per bed . . .' (cited from a descriptive pamphlet The Ernest Oppenheimer Hospital, published
by Anglo American Corporation). The hospital is intended to serve all
the mines of the Anglo American Corporation group, and there are
women's and children's and maternity sections.
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