On December 15, the departmental medical committee, an independent body, indicated that the bronchopulmonary cancer of an employee of the Toulouse University Hospital crèche, Marie-Christine Anglade, was indeed attributable to her “passive” exposure to asbestos. An opinion which was based in particular on that of an expert appointed by the hospital management and whose conclusions were implacable: “the pathology from which Mrs Anglade suffers falls under table 30 bis of the general scheme”, that relating to diseases due inhalation of asbestos dust. And this passive exposure “is the exclusive cause” of his death which occurred in November 2021. In fact, his pathology was therefore according to him “to be taken care of under the occupational disease”.
For the husband of the former childcare assistant, who had worked for forty years in this crèche before leaving to treat his cancer, this was a way to continue his wife’s fight against an occupational disease. . But also to show that his “passive” exposure to asbestos was the direct cause. Because for many years, before this fibrous texture was pointed out, work was carried out without any real protection for construction workers.
At the start of the week, Pascal Anglade was received by the hospital’s human resources department, who told him that they recognized the occupational disease. “It’s a big step forward that my wife’s cancer is recognized as an occupational disease. But they do not apply everything that the expert says and do not recognize the imputability of his death to my wife’s passive exposure to asbestos”, he laments, indicating that the management of the CHU has found “a loophole by invoking benevolence” about his file.
A doubt about accountability for management
“We recognize the occupational disease, but we continue, in the light of the elements we have, to say that it is difficult to establish with certainty a link between the pathology which led to the death of the person and the exposure. exposure to asbestos in the course of his work. She is a childcare assistant, she certainly worked for a long time in her work environment, but she is not a logistical or technical professional, she has never in her professional practice been confronted with work that predisposed her to develop a pathology linked to asbestos”, advances Edouard Douheret, the HRD of the Toulouse University Hospital.
So how can we recognize Marie-Christine Anglade’s cancer as an occupational disease, if we consider that she did not “contract it as a result of her work”, when that is the very definition of Code of Social Security ? That these diseases are the “consequence of more or less prolonged exposure to a risk that exists during the usual exercise of the profession” as the site of the Social Security reminds us?
“We make this decision in a particular context. The expertise that took place is a unique expertise. Sometimes we do two, there we stopped on this expertise because the person died, because we will not have any other elements, probably additional, to dig the imputability. But also because the ministry encourages us to have a policy of benevolence in the context of recognition of occupational diseases, it is noted of the DGAFP [direction générale de l’administration et de la fonction publique] of July 2015 which encourages us to be in this dynamic. In this specific case, this does not prevent us from having doubts about imputability, but also, as a benevolence, from recognizing the occupational disease”, justifies the human resources manager.
He indicates, in fact, that this decision will open rights at the level of the former employee’s pay, in particular in terms of bonuses, which will be regularized in February. Which is far from satisfactory for Pascal Anglade. “Money, I always said I didn’t care. What matters to me is that every six months a new cancer does not appear in the hospital. The management says that it has doubts about the imputability but it is she who signed on January 9 a “decision of recognition of imputability in the service of an occupational disease”, criticizes the husband of the former employee from the CHU.
Make case law
“And what does not satisfy me is that it does not record the causal link between the death of my wife and her cancer due to passive contact and the inhalation of asbestos, they never even pronounce the word cancer”, he continues, indicating that he was going to examine the possibility of an appeal before the administrative court.
He believes that his wife’s case could already serve as case law if other people, having worked in buildings where asbestos was found, were to be diagnosed. And believes that screening and medical monitoring of these employees is a necessity.
“Within the CHU, there are exposure sheets which are declared to the occupational health service and there is an assessment of the qualification of exposure, and depending on its level, there is a follow-up which is put in place. If it is intermediate or strong, there is monitoring by chest scanner every 5 or 10 years. These sheets concern employees potentially exposed to asbestos, such as those in the maintenance department. There are more than 400 open files, ”says Marie-Josée Ghiglia, risk prevention manager at the CHU. A device of exposure sheets which was also deployed among the employees of the crèche.
A building which welcomes the children of health personnel and which underwent work in the summer of 2021 to protect and cover the areas where there was asbestos, in order to make inert and above all inaccessible any dust from this fibrous material.