Asbestos in Rai, a former employee died of mesothelioma: autopsy ordered

The Public Prosecutor's Office has ordered the suspension of the funeral and the autopsy examination

ROME – Mariusz Marian Sodkiewicz, a former RAI employee, died yesterday morning at the age of 62 in Rome due to pleural mesothelioma, a disease “deriving from exposure to asbestos during his long service in the Roman headquarters of the public broadcaster”. Only a few days ago Mariusz told the newspaper ‘Repubblica’ that the state company had allocated “considerable funds” over the years to try to solve a problem “that it had been aware of for some time”: “They carried out regular checks to monitor the quantity of fibers present in the air”, said Mariusz, therefore denouncing that his exposure to the killer fiber had occurred “only inside the office”.
For the protection of one’s rights the former Rai employee had turned to the lawyer Ezio Bonanni, president of the National Asbestos Observatory, who has long been committed to clarifying the presence of the “silent killer” in the state television buildings Italian, who last March, as legal representative of the family, had filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Rome asking in the document that the managers responsible for the failure to protect the employees be “identified and judged exposed to asbestos”.

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Sodkiewicz was born in Lubsko, Poland, he had spent most of his working life in Rai. Starting from 2002 for twenty-two years, he had carried out various tasks in various company offices, including the Prix Italia press office, the Digital Terrestrial project, the Human Resources Department and the Technology Department. In July 2023, the man began to experience the characteristic symptoms of pleural mesothelioma: difficulty breathing, persistent cough and chest pain. Subsequent clinical tests confirmed the presence of the disease, attributing it to his exposure to asbestos.
The mineral, as Mariusz himself had reported, was present in the buildings and systems of the broadcaster which, in the years 2010-2012 had arranged the remediation plan, but the safety measures during the process were found to be insufficient, and the employees, including Sodkiewicz, who had personally witnessed the asbestos remediation activities during his normal working hours, also noticing crumbling, were exposed to dangerous airborne fibers during work activities. Furthermore, the man had reported to his internal contacts that the works had been carried out in the absence of adequate technical prevention and individual protection tools, but he had been constantly reassured that there was no risk to his health and that the limits for exposure to asbestos fibers had not been exceeded.

Only a few days ago at a hearing in the RAI Supervisory Commission, the CEO Roberto Sergio, speaking on the issue relating to the sending of the service record to Franco Di Mare, noted that on the asbestos problem he had sent a “ documentation certifying that in Viale Mazzini there is no risk of contamination at this time.” Mariusz Marian Sodkiewicz, finally comments the lawyer Bonanni, was part of a generation of employees who “dedicated their lives to public service. His death, which also raises questions about safety at work and the responsibility of institutions, is a of the many painful testimonies of the devastating consequences of exposure to asbestos in the workplace”.