A former dockyard worker was told he may only have six months to live after he was diagnosed with a malign form of cancer linked to exposure to asbestos in his workplace.
Peter Walsh, 77, of Whitstable, Kent, left school at 15 to become an apprentice boiler maker at the Chatham Dockyard in Kent in 1962.
Mr Walsh went on to become a qualified boiler maker at the dockyard, where he worked till 1970 in an environment in which he said was often “covered in asbestos“.
“It would be a constant cloud of asbestos dust around the ships and the environment,” Mr Walsh said.
“I ended up working in what was called the boiler shop. That is where metal items from the ship would come in that had at some stage been covered in asbestos, and there was no guarantee those pieces were cleaned.
“The boilers and the pipeworks were also lagged with asbestos,” he added.
Mr Walsh told i he began experiencing chest pain and breathlessness in February 2023.
His doctors discovered a “suspicious” fluid in his lungs and, following a biopsy, diagnosed him with mesothelioma – a fatal form of cancer linked to asbestos exposure.
“I was told I had six months to a year to live,” Mr Walsh told i. “That was in July [last year].
“My life is shattered. I don’t know what my future holds.”
Mr Walsh said his symptoms include severe fatigue, constant tiredness, a lack of appetite and a constant cough.
He said: “I had a swelling on my right chest, a strange lump.
“They sent me to the ultrasound biopsy and they diagnosed that the mesothelioma was coming out through the wall of the chest.
“I can’t do anything at all. I’m out of breath and my wife has to do everything that we used to do together.
“In a way, it’s more hell for her than it is for me.”
The Chatham Dockyard was a Royal Navy Dockyard belonging to the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Mr Walsh’s lawyer, Harminder Bains, whose own father worked at the dockyard and died of mesothelioma in 2000, led a case against the MoD and, earlier this month, secured Mr Walsh a “substantial amount” of compensation.
Ms Bains told i: “I decided in 1998 to specialise in asbestos and then a few months later my dad was diagnosed with mesothelioma. How incredible is that?
“It is awful because he died at the age of 68 and, if it wasn’t for the mesothelioma, he would have lived for at least another 20 years.
“I’ve watched how much my father suffered, which was enormous.
“He was very fit. From being able to do very strenuous work in the house, he was unable to even lift his little baby grandson.”
Ms Bains represented her father in a case against the MoD after his diagnosis and managed to get him compensation.
“I deal with every case like it’s my dad’s case,” she said.
The MoD has previously admitted widespread failings in the management of asbestos across its estate.
The Government conducted a review of asbestos in relation to defence after it was revealed in July 2018 that thousands of staff members may have been exposed to the substance on Sea King helicopters over a period of nearly 40 years.
In a letter to the Unite union, it was reported that defence minister Annabel Goldie said: “Regrettably, this work exposed failings beyond Sea King, and it is now clear that ACM [asbestos-containing materials] have not been properly identified and tracked across a range of equipment platforms.”
Lady Goldie said the review had discovered asbestos at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and that two of the four hangars had been closed to be cleaned up.
Asbestos was also detected at MoD Lyneham in Wiltshire, where three hangars were closed, and an MoD vehicle and equipment storage site in Ashchurch, Gloucestershire.
An MoD spokesperson said: “We take the health and safety of our service personnel and defence employees extremely seriously and have robust procedures around managing asbestos that comply with health and safety regulations.
“We are proactive in eliminating any asbestos-containing materials in defence infrastructure owned by the MOD. We maintain a register of any known asbestos to ensure that no disturbance takes place and correct precautions can be taken when necessary.
“Compensation is available to all those who have been injured or suffered an illness caused by their work or service; for civil servants through the Civil Service Injury Benefit Scheme and for military personnel through the War Pensions Scheme and Armed Forces Compensation Scheme.”
Asbestos is estimated to lead to 5,000 work-related deaths each year, making it the greatest cause of work-related deaths in Britain, according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
The substance, which is resistant to fire and heat, was widely used in the latter half of the 20th century in a range of products, including ceiling and floor tiles, boilers, pipes, car brakes and insulation material for ships and buildings.
Due to health risks stemming from exposure to asbestos, the substance was fully banned in 1999, making it illegal to buy, sell, import or export any materials containing asbestos.
Despite this ban, HSE data suggests that asbestos can still be found in around 300,000 non-domestic buildings, including hospitals, schools and offices.
In a report published in 2022, Parliament’s Work and Pensions Committee described asbestos exposure as “one of the great workplace tragedies of modern times” and urged the government to create a central register of asbestos in non-public buildings and have all asbestos removed from such buildings within 40 years.
A petition that gathered more than 10,000 signatures was developed the following year backing the committee’s recommendations.
The government rejected both the petition and the report, citing a lack of “clear evidence to demonstrate how responding to the two recommendations would improve health outcomes”.
In a written response to the petition, the government said that “the best evidence currently available” favours the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, which requires those who own or are responsible for the maintenance of non-domestic buildings to manage the risk of asbestos and remove it when needed.
i has contacted the HSE for a comment.