A raft of UK media have this week run stories today regarding the creation of a national online database and the setting up of a programme to remove deadly asbestos in educational establishments.
More than 90% of schools contain asbestos says the Joint Union Asbestos Committee and teachers and pupils face a “tsunami” of deaths from exposure on a daily basis.
Asbestos was used widely in the construction of schools and can be found in various locations including: walls and ceilings, floor tiles, air cabinet heaters, pipe lagging, cement products, roof tiles and toilet cisterns.
Terrifying statistics show that at least 1,400 teachers and support staff – as well as 12,600 pupils – have died since 1980 from mesothelioma, a cancer caused by breathing in asbestos fibres. The report predicts that many more will also die over the following decades due to the ongoing degradation of buildings that contain asbestos.
The JUAC’s report follows an investigation by Gill Reed on behalf of eight unions representing teachers and support staff.
It says that “hundreds of thousands of students and staff” exposed to asbestos since the mid-1990s are predicted to die from mesothelioma.
Mesothelioma is a type of cancer that develops in the lining that covers the surface of some of the body’s organs – mainly the lining of the lungs – and is usually linked to asbestos exposure.
The report states:
“When asbestos containing materials are in a poor condition, they are more likely to release asbestos fibres.
Crucially, the evidence in this report suggests that [asbestos] is likely to be a tsunami in the UK. Their deaths would be the consequence of ineffective asbestos regulations and a cost-cutting culture. that wrongly implies ‘asbestos is safe so.”
Dr Reed added;
“These findings are very worrying because there is this mantra [that] asbestos in schools can be safe if it remains undisturbed.
But no one knows if it’s been disturbed because you can’t always see it, and school checks are simply not adequate or not being carried out effectively.
It is too late for those already exposed but prompt Government action to remove asbestos from buildings could prevent further deaths in future.”
Charity Mesothelioma UK CEO Liz Darlison stated:
“The ongoing presence of asbestos in our deteriorating school buildings is like a bomb that is slowly exploding.
It’s an unbelievable tragedy and a national disgrace that we are not doing more to protect people, especially children, from the dangers of mesothelioma.“
Successive governments have failed to take action and have allowed asbestos which is damaged to remain in place at schools, it is claimed.
Lawyer Harminder Bains, whose own father died from mesothelioma, and who has been representing asbestos victims for several decades has been instructed by the National Education Union to take legal action against the Government to make schools safer.
She told the Daily Mail;
“You don’t have to see visible dust for it to be dangerous, and inhaling any amount is potentially deadly.
Schools are not fit for purpose. As one teacher said to me, we wouldn’t send our children into burning buildings, so why are we sending them into buildings riddled with asbestos?”
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