Doing my bit for National Carbon Monoxide Awareness Week

On Saturday the Liverpool Echo kindly printed a little piece about the work Liverpool City Council is putting in to support the national drive and combined it with my efforts to raise awareness.

On Monday I went to the House of Lords with 22 other survivors, friends and relatives of people who have been poisoned to officially launch the week. We had a two hour session with various people crucial to the campaign’s success. Lord McKenzie from the DWP who is spearheading the Government’s action, Department of Health senior civil servants, representatives from the oil and gas industries, CORGI and various safety awareness groups.

It was very moving, lots of tears, especially from those who have been subjected to long term chronic poisoning and now suffer from various neural problems, paralysis, brain damage, memory problems, speech difficulties, aches and pains. Several are confined to wheelchairs. These people suffer the most as the medical profession is inexperienced and ill-equipped to deal with their problems, many struggling to believe that something we all know kills you, can also cause problems for those who manage to survive an attack.

We drew up three main priorities

1. A centre of excellence somewhere in the UK where victims of poisoning could go for specialist treatment and advice
2. A call for audible CO alarms/detectors to be provided to people when they move house, when a tenancy changes hands, when new houses are built, when they book holidays, at the airport shops and so on
3. For gas appliances – cookers, boilers and fires, only to be sold to people with a corgi registered certificate.

Well done to Lynn Griffiths of CO Awareness for her work in putting this together, the week goes on to the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament, culminating in a big event in Dewsbury for the medical profession.

I got up at the crack of dawn this morning to be interviewed in the BBC Radio Merseyside studios. Snelly kindly invited me onto his programme to talk a little about what had happened to Michael, what the council is doing locally, in conjunction with the fire service and the public health people, and also to stress the need for people to get their appliances checked and their chimneys swept at this time of year as the heating goes back on after the summer break. You might be able to hear the interview if you check it out today on the playback, but I confess I have not tried myself.