Heartbreak of workers
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FTER spending years of your life working, it’s a devastating diagnosis to be told that your day job is now killing you. Hundreds of men and women in Wales are being slowly poisoned every year by historic exposure to asbestos.
Few survive the cancer mesothelioma for more than 12 months after diagnosis.
The cancer causes shortness of breath, chest pain and a cough, and for which there is no cure.
Many of those diagnosed in Wales are ex-miners, construction workers or those who worked in other industrial occupations in the 1960s and 1970s, when 170,000 tonnes of asbestos was imported to the UK each year.
Every year the number of people diagnosed with mesothelioma grows as the consequences of working or coming into contact with asbestos 50 or 60 years ago become apparent.
Latest figures show that between 2016 and 2018, 263 people in Wales – often previously fit and healthy – were diagnosed with the devastating disease.
The dangers of working with asbestos were first documented in the early 1900s, but it wouldn’t be until 1999 that the potentially deadly material was made illegal in the UK.
Many industrial workers worked dayin day-out with asbestos, breathing in the deadly fibres from the material that would cause the onset of mesothelioma decades later.
The greater exposure to asbestos, the greater the risk of developing mesothelioma.
Even washing the clothes of someone who worked with asbestos can be dangerous and lead to the disease taking root.
According to figures from the Health and Safety Executive in 2017, 2,087 men and 439 women died from mesothelioma in the UK.
And the threat of asbestos didn’t disappear with the 1999 ban.
Homes, schools and other buildings constructed before 1985, when a partial ban on some types of asbestos came into force, may well still contain asbestos as insulation.
Having asbestos in your home or school is not dangerous until the material is disturbed, and specialist contractors can be called in to remove it safely.
Sadly though, for the thousands of men and women who were exposed to asbestos, the acknowledgment of its deadly effects has come far too late.
Roy Clift, from Duffryn Rhondda, was exposed to asbestos working for two stalwarts of Welsh industry – the National Coal Board and Ford Motor Company – spanning six decades.
While working for the National Coal Board between 1945 and 1966, Roy worked at Nantewlaith, Duffryn Rhondda and Caerau collieries as a fitter.
It’s alleged that Roy was required to work on asbestos brake pads on diesel locomotives and remove pipe work which was clad with asbestos.
Between 1966 and 1991, he worked at the large Ford plant in Swansea.
During this time, it’s believed that Roy regularly came into contact with asbestos-lagged pipe work.
Sadly, Roy died of mesothelioma in 2016, just weeks after he began to show symptoms.
Cardiff-based solicitors Hugh James helped Roy’s family secure a six-figure settlement from the National Coal Board and Ford Motor Company in May.
His wife, Sadie, said: “It was a complete and utter shock. We realised Roy had worked with asbestos in the past, but didn’t realise how dangerous it was.
“He became short of breath and, within a matter of weeks, his condition deteriorated rapidly and he passed away before we really had time to come to terms with it.”
Sadie and Roy’s grandson, who asked not to be named, remembered his grandfather as being “full of life and a happy, jolly man”, until weeks before he died at the age of 86.
“Grandad would always be singing,” he said.
“He loved music and he’d have the whole family around, he’d be on the