Hospitals see rise in asbestos disease cases

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Hospitals see rise in asbestos disease cases

elymiles

13th July 2006

The number of Northern Ireland hospital admissions for killer asbestos diseases have more than doubled in 10 years, it emerged yesterday.

With 208 admissions in 2004, compared with 106 in 1995, victims have warned the tally won't peak until 2050.
Sufferer Brian Lee, 69, from Dundonald, said the silent killer threatened hundreds of lives.

"It brings home to you the seriousness of these diseases and the problem is that they are incurable so there's not a lot which hospitals can do," he said.
"The numbers being treated are just going to grow as people discover they have this disease."

The figures were released in response to a Parliamentary question from Democratic Unionist Party MP Iris Robinson.
Conditions develop from particles of asbestos dust caught in the lungs.

Many sufferers are former shipyard workers or tradesmen who used asbestos as a popular building material in the 1950s and 1960s.