KEY POINTS
- The former technician at Sapref has spent twenty years fighting for workplace toxin compensation.
- The employee received R2.5 million through legal victories yet the compensation amount relies on his reduced compensation scale.
- The medical evaluation from an expert medically proven that work toxins led to liver disease thus making his legal case stronger.
For the past twenty years the former process technician Maslamony Kistan Murugan has fought legal battles against his past employer regarding the work-from-caused severe liver damage.
His nearly thirty-year career at Shell and BP’s South African Petroleum Refineries (Sapref) has not deterred him from his ongoing pursuit of justice for the disease which transformed his life.
Career setback and financial struggles
In 1996 Murugan started experiencing health problems that resulted in his diagnosis of severe liver damage. Professional demotion forced him to move from his position as technician to clerk while his salary decreased from R17,700 to R5,000.
His medical dismissal by Shell followed in 2004 when no independent physician examined him and denied him his severance benefits.
Further complications in his life came when doctors identified prostate cancer in Murugan. The union made stressful demands that Murugan refused to comply with because he believed the offered R35,000 was insufficient to compensate for his medical hardships.
Legal victories but continued battle
Despite setbacks, Murugan fought tirelessly. He obtained R1 million from his insurance claim in 2007 only by manually delivering his medical documents after Sapref failed to fulfill their responsibility of claim delivery.
The Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act (Coida) granted him a R1.5 million settlement in September 2023 although he remained unable to perform calculations based on his decreased post-demotion wage.
The legal advocates for Murugan work to retrieve his full salary along with his initial salary benefits. Murugan’s liver showed improvement after leaving his job at Sapref as an occupational medicine specialist Professor Rajen Naidoo validated that work toxins at Sapref were responsible for causing the medical condition.
Murugan continues his pursuit to recuperate medical benefits and obtain reasonable payouts from Sapref together with pursuing legal action against their suspected poor management.
