Young worker with silicosis offered compensation – on the day he died ...Middle East

A father-of-three dying of silicosis from cutting kitchen worktops was approved for compensation for contracting the deadly illness at work – but only informed on the day he died.

While receiving end-of-life care in hospital, Marek Marzec, 48, was also warned by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) that his entitlement to benefits “may be affected” if he did not attend an appointment in person without “good reason”.

Lawyers for the terminally ill stone worker had spent months pressing the DWP to speed up the payment of his benefits and compensation as his condition rapidly deteriorated. He was forced to stop work after his diagnosis in April last year and died just seven months later, in November.

The DWP has said it will launch an “urgent review” into the case to understand what happened after being contacted by The i Paper.

The case comes to light as doctors and lawyers warn that desperately ill stonemasons battling silicosis from cutting engineered stone quartz kitchen worktops face eviction and homelessness due to delays in receiving benefits that they are entitled to as their illnesses force them out of work.

They have called for changes to the current system so that tradespeople with accelerated or acute silicosis caused by their jobs have their payments fast-tracked, as is done for people with asbestos-related cancers.

When The i Paper contacted the DWP, it said it would refer the issue to the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council, which advises on what diseases are fast-tracked for payments.

In the past two years, there has been a surge in silicosis cases in young stonemasons in the UK, with at least 45 diagnosed so far. The i Paper has launched its Killer Kitchens campaign to force the Government to clamp down on deadly silica dust putting workers’ lives at risk.

Mr Marzec’s family have spoken out about the need for tougher regulation in the UK and a ban on engineered stone worktops, which can contain very high levels of silica, as part of the campaign.

Mr Marzec was one a growing number of young kitchen stone workers in the UK diagnosed with the incurable lung disease, which is contracted when workers inhale toxic silica dust while cutting and grinding engineered – or artificial – stone without safety measures.

In July last year, his legal team wrote to the DWP submitting his applications for Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB) and a compensation lump-sum under a Government scheme the Pneumoconiosis Workers’ Compensation Act (PWCA) after he was diagnosed with acute silicosis.

But repeated requests from law firm Leigh Day to the DWP over several months to speed up the payments, seen by The i Paper, went unanswered.

In October last year, as Mr Marzec lay dying in a hospital bed while on oxygen, a letter was sent by the DWP to his home requesting he attend an in-person assessment of his disability the following week.

The letter said if he did not attend the appointment without “good reason” his “entitlement to IIDB may be affected”.

At that point, he had been under palliative end-of-life care at the Whittington Hospital for a month.

The request came after at least four letters were sent from his lawyers to the DWP explaining why he could not attend in person – because he was a hospital in-patient who needed oxygen support to breathe, was on the lung transplant list and was receiving palliative care.

Another email from his lawyers told the DWP it was unacceptable that Mr Marzec’s application for benefits and compensation had not yet been processed, the DWP wrote on 29 October to say he would be receiving IIDB payments.

Despite having days to live, they assessed he was 85 per cent disabled, rather than 100 per cent, which would have entitled him to the full weekly payment of £225.

On 30 November last year, the day he died, the DWP wrote to Mr Marzec to confirm they would also be making a lump sum compensation payment.

Marek Marzec’s correspondence with the DWP

Ewan Tant, a lawyer representing Mr Marzec, said: “Marek’s case shows in the starkest terms how the current DWP processes seem to me to be failing patients with silicosis.

“Despite repeated notifications to the DWP that Marek was in hospital, on oxygen, and under palliative care, he was still asked to attend an in‑person assessment.

“His payments were only confirmed weeks before his death, and the lump sum was authorised on the very day he passed away. No one should have to fight through bureaucracy whilst fighting for their life.”

Last month, Dr Johanna Feary, a consultant in occupational lung disease at the Royal Brompton, told a Westminster meeting held by MPs and peers that she was writing letters “most weeks” on behalf of patients so they would not be evicted.

“They’re not only worried about their health, they’re not only worried that they’re going to die, but they’re also worried about their financial security. I think that’s something that we need to react to as a nation,” she told the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Occupational Safety and Health.

Dr Feary, who cares for dozens of stonemasons with silicosis from cutting quartz, said the best advice is to stop working in their job so tradespeople are no longer exposed to silica dust.

But this had “huge consequences” and could lead to unemployment for workers, she said.

“They may be breadwinners, they may have young families, which is actually often the case, and then they become dependent on benefits and other ways to try and support themselves and their families,” Dr Feary said.

“This has resulted in devastating consequences to them in terms of housing, people being made homeless, people being moved out of their local environment and around their small community support area to move elsewhere in the country just because there’s no available housing for them.”

A DWP spokesperson said: “We offer our sincere condolences to Marek Marzec’s friends and family.

“We are conducting an urgent review of this case to understand what happened.”

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