Charity gives support to compensation campaign
A WALLSEND charity is giving its full support to a campaign highlighting the compensation given to families who have lost loved ones to mesothelioma.
Justice for Asbestos Families Campaign is being backed by the Mick Knighton Mesothelioma Research Fund.
It is a campaign which highlights the unfairness in the way compensation for bereavement is awarded to families who have lost a relative to mesothelioma.
Mesothelioma is a devastating disease which has no cure, and it is often the case that sufferers die within just months of being diagnosed with the illness.
Families in England and Wales receive tens of thousand of pounds less in compensation than their counterparts in Scotland.
A video, which has been created by mesothelioma sufferers and widows in the north east of England, calls on the Government to amend the law on asbestos compensation.
The short film hears from families and victims of the cancer, and talks frankly about the devastating effect it can have on people's lives.
It details the difference in payment to families who live in England and Wales and those who live in Scotland and shows how people believe that families, widows and widowers, should all be entitled to the same compensation because everyone is part of the United Kingdom.
The group has also started a petition, and is seeking as many people as possible to sign the online petition to support the campaign.
Chris Knighton, whose husband Mick died from mesothelioma in 2001, launched the Mick Knighton Mesothelioma Research Fund in memory of her husband.
The charity, which is based at the Sir GB Hunter Memorial Hospital at The Green in Wallsend, has raised thousands of pounds for the fund, and fully supports the campaign.
She told the News Guardian: "We formed the group and the DVD because when we heard about it we were just so upset to think that just a matter of a few miles away, people's pain and suffering was thought of as more important than ours.
"The DVD is a chance for our group to speak out frankly about it, and the injustice of it.
"It is really dreadful because you have lost a good one, you should have been growing old together and you go through the pain and suffering and it is terribly upsetting.
"As a group we just thought maybe there is something we can do."
Although the campaign is still in early days, there have still been a number of names on the petition and the group hope to highlight the injustice of the bereavement compensation.
The video can be seen online at www.thompsons.law.uk/ntext/justice-for-asbestos-families.htm and members of the trust in Wallsend hope that the film will hit home and encourage Members of Parliament to put pressure on the Government.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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