Asbestos victims honoured at memorial service

Local residents came together earlier this month at an inaugural asbestos memorial service to pay tribute to men and women who have died as a result of asbestos exposure.

Asbestosis and Mesothelioma Association of Australia secretary Nick Bos said the association was proud to hose the first asbestos service for the region to honour victims of asbestos-related diseases and to indirectly promote asbestos awareness and safer building behaviour on the Gold Coast, Tweed and Northern Rivers region.

“Our members spend much of their lives in the 1950s-1980s working hard to support their families in various industries including building, construction, defence and manufacturing during which time they were exposed to asbestos” he said.

“At the time, the dangers of asbestos were not known to workers or their families. As a result, many of these men and women developed asbestos-related diseases, including asbestos-related cancers such as lung cancer and mesothelioma.

Even more heart breaking in that many family members have also developed asbestos-related diseases from washing their loved one’s work clothes.

Many innocent lives have been lost to asbestos and the service was an important opportunity to come together and honour them.

Our message to the community is to always seek professional advice when renovating or working with suspected asbestos-containing materials – there is no safe level of asbestos exposure and inhaling even one asbestos fibre can be enough to cause a person to develop an asbestos related cancer.

Some of the photos from the event are found below (click on the image to view a larger version):