Athlone asbestos victim gets his money

Mohammed’s work involved scraping, cleaning and repairing deteriorating boiler and piping insulation (lagging) made from asbestos fibre.

He started work at the power station in 1967 and retired in 2007 at the age of 65, five years after the station stopped generating electricity on a continuous basis. But maintenance of insulation at the moth-balled plant continued right up to his retirement and continues to this day, though on a much reduced basis, with a smaller team.

Mohammed, who takes care of two grandchildren of 11 and 15 on his retirement pension of R5,000 per month, suffers from asbestosis due to his work at the station. His wife died in 2011.

When he began work at the power station, he and his fellow lagging workers just used mutton cloth around their mouths, and eye goggles as protection against the asbestos dust. In the 1990’s, when it became obvious that workers were getting sick from asbestos exposure, and the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) took up the issue, the power station management and the City of Cape Town started a regular medical examination program for insulation workers and instituted better exposure control and personal protection for lagging maintenance work.

Thanks to to this programme, Mohammed was diagnosed in the mid-1990s with asbestosis, a progressive lung disease caused only by asbestos fibres, for which there is no cure, only palliative medicine. The main symptom is shortness of breath, which gets worse over time. It can also cause other health complications because of the strain imposed on the body from breathing with scarred lungs with reduced capacity. Eventually, a victim becomes incapable of the smallest exertion, and death follows, often as a result of the various complications.

According to the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act 1993, a claim must be lodged by the City on behalf of the employee within one year of diagnosis of the disease, at the Compensation Commissioner’s Office in Pretoria, a branch of the Department of Labour which administers the Act. The City authorities, as the employer, have their own insurance against liabilities for payments to sick workers under the Act, so they are exempted from paying insurance premiums on behalf of workers to the COIDA Compensation Fund, and do not rely on it for payouts to sick workers. But they do rely on the Compensation Authority’s medical panels for verification of diagnosis and to establish how badly disabled the sick worker is and whether the disability is permanent.

In January 2014, nearly 20 years after his diagnosis, Mr.Mohamed had still not been compensated.

But when Groundup contacted Mohammed this week, there was good news. He was compensated in September 2014 by the City, his ex-employers, with a lump sum payment of R665, 000, and said he was “satisfied” with this payment, though as far as he knew, there was no payment for expensive medicines he has had to buy since his retirement.

He has settled the payout largely on his 6 children, who are adults with children of their own.

Mohammed also went on pilgrimage to the Middle East, but had to come back when he fell sick - he is frail as a result of his asbestosis, he says - and was hospitalised for a time.

But he continues to take his grandchildren to school and care for them. He tends his wife’s grave every week, and says “no-one knows when he will die, only God, but I will join her one of these days”.

Pete Lewis is a former senior researcher at the Industrial Health Research Unit at the University of Cape Town.

See also: Labour Department fails to follow up on sick workers’ claims.