Staff and pupils dying from asbestos in schools

[nobodysdaughternow]

I am completely shocked to discover I have potentially sent two of my children to schools which could potentially kill them.

The Times today detailed the story of Chris Willis diagnosed with mesothelioma (a cancer caused by inhaling asbestos fibres) at 29 years old. He died last year at 34.

Newcastle City Council paid substantial damages to Chris for his exposure to asbestos, which he believed happened at Kenton School between 2000 and 2007.

Schools with asbestos are told not to publish asbestos management plans.

10,000 teachers, pupils and staff who have died from asbestos exposure at schools in the past four decades.

If your child goes to a 'block built' school with asbestos, which is at or past it's design life expectancy, then they are at risk.

I naively believed asbestos exposure ended with my grandparents generation. I am very, very angry.

My middle ds went to a special school which was literally crumbling. It was an appalling school and when my son was distressed, he would throw himself at the particleboard wall which I now know may well have contained asbestos.

I didn't have a choice where I sent my kids to school. I thought poor Ofsted's were my biggest worry.

Aibu to ask if you know about the danger to teachers, staff and pupils from asbestos?

I do, because I work in a school and we were all sent the site plan that showed where the asbestos was, so we could avoid disturbing it. Ceiling tiles, mostly, so we’re not to attach anything to them. That’s where the ‘advice’ ends and I’d bet not every member of staff knows about it or remembers.

It’s yet another example of how little regard for the safety of pupils and staff LEAs and the Govt have.

A lot of 1960s and 70s building have asbestos in the fabric. Not just schools.

Generally asbestos is safe as long as it is not disturbed or turned into dust form. The danger comes when those buildings are demolished, have works done or are crumbling from old age.

Yes it's been known for a while. The teachers unions are very hot on the issue. Ensuring asbestos surveys etc, for safety reasons.

And the UK have significantly more deaths than other countries.

I read about The Times’ campaign this morning. I am grateful to them for raising it, but so, so shocked by what it said.

Most people affected right now are from exposure many years ago.

Has anyone got a link to the Times coverage? This is so worrying.

“10,000 teachers, pupils and staff who have died from asbestos exposure at schools in the past four decades”

source please?

The asbestos in schools issue relates to the scrapping of Building Schools for the Future in 2010. Schools aren’t meant to be in this state. Funding had been applied for and granted to make buildings safe. The programme was scrapped.

@hollyblueivy It is a current problem in schools, now. But it wasn’t meant to be.

DH is a building surveyor so this is not news to me. He says that the biggest current victims of asbestos are electricians who have worked predominantly on local authority owned buildings.
He's been involved in a lot of asbestos removal over the years and the steps taken to mitigate exposure are really strict. It's so sad that people have been exposed while at work.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/act-now-on-asbestos-pupils-and-teachers-being-killed-years-after-exposure-pznsmtd6p

How old are you OP?

Virtually everybody alive in the UK has spent time living, being educated and working in buildings with asbestos.

Both my schools in the 80s and 90s had asbestos in the buildings. They were built in different eras.

It is only because building works were done on them and parts heavily sealed off with warning signs was I aware that asbestos in the buildings.

The main thing as a PP has said is for it not to be disturbed.

I actually heard on a talk radio yesterday that the big problem with schools is people putting things like cabling through the ceiling, or even worse breaking through fire walls to do so.

The Sunday Times, published today as part of their "Act Now on Asbestos" campaign.

According to the respiratory consultants we are at a peak with mesothelioma at the moment. Most of these are from exposure from years ago. My husband's uncle died from it a few years ago. It's awful

I've just checked my local authority website for a list of schools with asbestos plans and there are 22 primary and 5 secondary schools listed, which is pretty much all of them. You'd be hard pushed nog to send your child to a school with asbestos in this area.

@Reugny

Please read The Times article. This is not a throwback issue that has been taken care of by previous generations.

The disturbance is caused by dilapidated school buildings. Anyone involved in school buildings up to 2010 had done the relevant work to make them safe, with allocated funding to do it … then, it all stopped.

The fabric of some (many) school buildings are themselves now a health risk to the children who learn in them (and those who staff them).

@Reugny I'm 50, however Chris Willis was 34 when he died from inhaling asbestosis at school from 2000 to 2007.

Both my Granddad's worked at Turners Asbestos Factory in Rochdale in the 50s.

I know about historic asbestos exposure. I worked for a housing association and used to publish the leaflets in asbestos in homes.

I absolutely did not know that exposed in system block built schools built between 1960 and 1980, which are crumbling inside and out, could lethally harm my school age kids.

The only schools in the UK which don’t have asbestos are those built post-1999. Any younger than that and it’ll be there somewhere. I worked at one school which had some of it removed as it was in danger of becoming unstable - it was done in the summer holidays and was a huge job, hazmat suits, huge areas swathed in plastic sheets, none of us allowed on site while it was actually removed. Vastly expensive and schools now don’t have the budget for it. They have buckets in corridors catching the water from the leaking roof, FGS. The idea that there’s money for asbestos removal is laughable. And in the meantime it is fundamentally flawed to trot out “it’s safe if not disturbed” - maybe in an office, but not in a building with 1000 teenagers who may be inclined to boot a football at a wall panel. It’s safe to say there are going to be more mesothelioma deaths in the coming decades. School buildings are in too much of a state for there not to be.

I worked in a school that had asbestos removal a few years ago and we were told not to worry, the asbestos had remained intact before then. Except, absolute bollocks, because for at least the ten years prior there had been all sorts of works done on the walls and ceilings in the buildings, without any proper care taken with regard to the asbestos.

So they put our names on a list in case someone gets asbestosis.

Same for me. Before we relocated this year, we lived in a new town where every single school was constructed in thee 50s and 60s.

Two secondaries were rebuilt under the labour government but those that weren't are in an appalling condition.

My disabled 13 year old went to a special school which had rising damp and leaked when it rained.

Ideally all asbestos should be removed but doing so is more dangerous than leaving it where it is. Builders and anyone in the surrounding area is put at risk.

It doesn't mitigate the tragedy of the 10,000 deaths at all but bear in mind that roughly 600,000 children a year join school. 600,000 x 40 years is 24 million.

And not all deaths will be due to schools. Other buildings of the era - sports centres, shopping centres etc have the same issue.

My Dad was a school site manager in the 90s and 2000s, and we lived in a house on the school grounds. He was exposed at work, and at home. In our fucking house. He died from Mesothelioma a few months ago.

I have to live with the fact that I and the rest of my family was exposed too, and that one of us might also die a similarly awful, premature death one day.

Children and staff spend most of their lives in schools. It is absolutely unsafe.

Gina Lees died in 2000 at 51. She used to pin her students artwork up on the ceilings.

A single pin in a wall or ceiling tile with asbestos releases fibres which someone is likely to inhale.

You don’t spend 6-8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 39 weeks a year in a shopping centre or sports centre (unless you work there). The exposure risk is just not the same. And shopping centres are not subject to the same stresses on the buildings as schools. I’ve seen more teenagers than I can remember punch and kick walls when in crisis.

I know this because the asbestos plan was part of my previous office role in a school. We have to get it signed by anyone doing works. We have been removing it bit by bit over summers as part of a rolling progrsmme around the site.

Yes, they have been doing asbestos surveys in schools since I began teaching 22 years ago. Lots of houses have asbestos in the artex as well.