Better systems needed for asbestos victims - lawyer

11.00am

Government agencies need to accept new research that shows hundreds more New Zealanders have died from asbestos-related disease than previously thought and come up with better victim support systems, a lawyer representing victims says.

The lung disease asbestosis has been blamed directly for killing 44 men between 1988 and 1999, but research published in the Medical Journal today says it contributed to the deaths of 264 men in those 12 years.

The study by Christchurch School of Medicine researcher Dr Pamela Smartt says between 20 and 40 per cent of adult New Zealand men may have been exposed to asbestos.

Lawyer Hazel Armstrong, who represents several asbestos victims seeking lump sum payouts from ACC, said today the study showed that Government departments, in particular ACC, needed to develop better systems to support those suffering from an asbestos-related disease.

She said people suffering asbestosis and mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung lining which takes even longer to develop than asbestosis, needed everday support.

"They don't know how to deal with these people. They don't offer them the kind of services they should," she told NZPA.

"If you're suffering from one of these diseases, it's very difficult to live a normal life. You can't do basic things like take out the rubbish, or walk very far, because you have great difficulty breathing."

She said at present it was taking ACC months to process claims, meaning victims were often near death before their claims were recognised.

While asbestos-related diseases often took 15-20 years to manifest, once they flared they could kill people within months.

Ms Armstrong said ACC's treatment of victims was poor, but its existence prevented victims from seeking compensation from the building companies responsible for selling and promoting asbestos long after it was known to be harmful.

"ACC provide a shelter behind which negligent employers can hide -- James Hardie being one. In Australia, they don't have that shelter and the workers are suing and getting on average A$245,000 ($271,347) for the same condition."

In August Ms Armstrong was successful in winning a $100,000 payout for the widow of an asbestos victim, Ross Lehmann.

Since then she said ACC had awarded lump sums to four other victims.

She said lump sums were vital, as victims would only receive an allowance for a short time before they died, meaning they would miss out on a reasonable entitlement for the harm they suffered.

In the study Dr Smartt estimated that between 6 per cent and 23 per cent of lung cancer deaths could be attributable to workplace asbestos exposure.

But her study found only 0.4 per cent of males dying with lung cancer in New Zealand had any mention of asbestos exposure or asbestosis in the death record.

More active attempts to diagnose asbestosis were urgently needed, she said.

The most likely reason for the under-reporting of asbestos-related lung cancer deaths was the high prevalence of smoking -- 80 to 85 per cent -- in workers most likely to be exposed to asbestos in the workplace.

Doctors often incorrectly assumed lung cancer in smokers was due to tobacco, she said.

Smokers exposed to asbestos are 10 times more likely to suffer lung cancer than non-smoking asbestos workers, and five times more so than non-exposed smokers.

In this country, asbestos exposure in the working population had probably been highest between the 1940s and 1980s, Dr Smartt said.

"The legacy of this exposure is an ageing population of men with asbestos-related disease."

Commenting on the study, New Zealand Medical Association chairman Dr Tricia Briscoe said the fact that 20 to 40 per cent of adult New Zealand males were likely to have had some form of workplace exposure to asbestos was extremely significant.

"This level of exposure means it is important for doctors to be aware of the risks when doing medical check-ups and consultations."

ACC said in a statement the study suggested doctors should look more closely at causes when examining patients suffering forms of lung cancer, and medical practitioners should not assume smoking was necessarily to blame.

It said ACC provided coverage for asbestos-related illness, but only if it was found to be work-related.

The agency was currently appealing the Lehmann case to the High Court in order to seek clarification of the law in relation to lump sum payouts.

ACC believed the law intended that lump sum payouts would only be available to those that suffered an injury at a workplace after April 1, 2002, when the Government passed legislation relating to lump sum payouts.

- NZPA