Passive exposure to asbestos, cause of cancer in a CHU employee

• Last year, a childcare assistant who had worked for forty years in the Purpan hospital nursery died of lung cancer.

• Subjected to passive exposure to asbestos during her professional career, she had taken steps to have her pathology recognized as an "occupational disease".

  A fight continued by her husband after his death.

• An expert report and the departmental medical council, an independent body, have just confirmed that his cancer was due to his passive exposure and recognize the occupational disease.

For forty years, Marie-Christine Anglade, a childcare assistant, worked at the crèche at the Purpan hospital, a structure that welcomes the children of the agents of the Toulouse University Hospital.

Until she fell ill in 2018 and was diagnosed with lung adenocarcinoma.

After three years of fighting this lung cancer, she died in November 2021, a few days before celebrating her 63rd birthday.

During the last months of her life, she fought to have her pathology recognized as an occupational disease, in connection with her passive exposure to asbestos within the department where she worked.

A process that is nearing completion.

No protection during the work

If she was not in direct contact with this substance, which causes serious illnesses, as construction workers are, for example, the childcare assistant worked in a building that contained it.

Like many other premises built before 1997 on the various sites of the hospital.

“My wife was mainly at the baby bottle, where they detected the presence of a lot of asbestos.

For many years, we didn't know there were any.

And as in any service, there were works carried out, sockets installed, holes made in the tiles and the ceiling.

We collected testimonials from employees who told us that sometimes this work was suspended, left as it was, then resumed.

And during that time,

it was unprotected and the officers had no personal protection.

There was also demolition work on the nursing school right next door, where there was also asbestos,” says Pascal Anglade, Marie-Christine's husband.

After his disappearance, he therefore decided to continue the steps taken by his wife, supported by the CGT, majority at the CHU.

He relied on medical certificates, in particular from his wife's pulmonologist or from a doctor in the occupational and environmental diseases department, indicating that passive exposure to asbestos dust could not be eliminated as the cause of his illness.

For the file to move forward, the departmental medical council was seized.

This independent body is consulted when it comes to making decisions on long-term sick leave or employee disability.

But also on occupational diseases.

In this context, a medical expert was commissioned to analyze the file on documents and decide on two points: was the previous condition the direct and exclusive cause of death?

Or was the pathology from which she suffered had to be taken care of as an occupational disease?

For an expert, asbestos is the "exclusive" cause

The conclusions of this pneumo-phtisiologist are without appeal.

He first indicated that the patient's previous state of health was not responsible for her death.

Because if Marie-Christine Anglade had not smoked for several years, she had done so for some time and that had to be taken into account.

But for the expert, it is asbestos that is in question.

According to him, “the pathology which Mrs. Anglade suffers from falls under table 30 bis of the general regime”, which attributes bronchopulmonary cancers to the inhalation of asbestos dust.

He even indicates that it "is the exclusive cause" of his death and that his pathology is "to be taken care of under the occupational disease".

Conclusions examined last week by the departmental medical council, in the presence of Pascal Anglade.

“The council validated the conclusions of the expert, its members validated a disability rate of 99%”, notes the husband of Marie-Christine for whom “the honor of [his] wife is restored”.

A notice which the Toulouse University Hospital has not yet received.

“If the opinions of the expert and the council converge, the CHU will recognize the occupational disease, the institution having the will to manage this situation in a peaceful context, of accompaniment and listening”, reacted the management of the hospital. hospital with

.

And to specify that “the spouse has been received and accompanied by the human resources department and will be again in the coming days”.

"I want my wife's case to set a precedent"

For the latter, the case of Marie-Christine must now serve the greatest number.

“I don't want damages, I want my wife's file to set a precedent, so that it can be used in the hospital as elsewhere.

When we know that in a place there was asbestos, we have proof that it is dangerous and that it can lead to death.

Until now we said when there is asbestos, get tested.

Often we questioned cigarettes and for those who did not smoke, we said "we don't know".

The difficulty with asbestos is that it can have an impact several decades later,” he laments.

A subject on which the CGT will continue to mobilize over the coming years, as it has already done in the past through the Health, Safety and Working Conditions Committee.

In 2017, this body commissioned a report on this issue.

“Experts have made a 200-page report on all the risks and shortcomings of the hospital in preventing asbestos exposure.

They recalled everything that the CHU should have done to comply with the law.

Asbestos has been banned since 1997”, strongly reminds Julien Terrié, secretary of the CGT at the Toulouse University Hospital.

Asbestos removal from old buildings until 2023

“There is a serious problem, we see it with the case of Marie-Christine Anglade, but there are other cases”, continues the one whose union does not intend to limit itself to the sole recognition of occupational disease.

“What we want is a conviction.

Health professionals cannot be exposed to death through negligence.

It's serious.

It's too easy to say we didn't know, ”he criticizes, indicating that a reflection on a collective complaint was underway.

In the meantime, he pleads for "more systematic" screening "of all people who have worked with work done before 2018 at the CHU".

And on the continuation of asbestos removal from the oldest premises.

“Today, the majority of buildings used for hospital activities were built after 1997, when the use of asbestos in construction was banned.

It therefore does not contain asbestos.

The CHU is concerned by the presence of asbestos on certain older surfaces, still in use.

In this context, it invested, from 2015, 14 million euros in a multi-annual plan for the removal of asbestos from these buildings which runs until 2023 and concerns 82,457 m2", recalls for its part the CHU which ensures to carry out "a policy of prevention of the asbestos risk which is based on the fight against passive exposure, training and awareness-raising”.

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• Toulouse

• Asbestos

• Chu

• Sickness

• Cancer

• Labor law

• Company

• Occitania