Posted: 12-Jul-2006 << BACK
11 July 2006
JUSTICE FOR MUM By Annie Brown The Daily Record, Scotland
EILEEN O'HARA DIED AFTER CONTRACTING HEPATITIS C FROM INFECTED BLOOD GIVEN TO HER DURING SURGERY. HER DAUGHTERS' FIGHT FOR ANSWERS GOES ON...It's more than three years since Eileen O'Hara's death and her daughters are still not sure why she died.They know hepatitis C killed her and that the disease came from an infected blood transfusion but the answers end there. The questions, on the other hand, stretch on forever.
The family, like all of those affected by the hepatitis C scandal, had hoped Health Minister Andy Kerr would decide the debacle of infected transfusions warranted a public inquiry. But sadly for all those involved he has recently ruled out this option. It's a huge disappointment for Eileen's daughters Roseleen, 40, Annette, 40 and Eileen, 38, but it didn't surprise them.
Roseleen said: "The response has been one of indifference. Dodging the issue.
"We want answers and then everyone can move on. All it does is raise your suspicions. What are they hiding? Why can't we have an inquiry? Could it happen again?
"We don't even know where that blood came from."
The sisters are also part of a separate 150-strong band who are asking for a judicial review into the deaths of their loved ones.They would rather grieve than fight but feel they owe it to their mother and the other victims to push on. Eileen, from Glasgow, had been so frustrated with bureaucratic stonewalling over her infection that she contacted lawyer Frank Maguire who agreed to act on behalf of the hepatitis victims. She died, aged 72, before she could attend the appointment with him.
Campaigners claim up to 3500 people were infected with hepatitis C between the Seventies and early Nineties, but no one knows for sure because they haven't all been traced. Roseleen said: "There are people out there who are infected and don't even know it. It's irresponsible. People could be saved. They could be taking precautions to stop them infecting their families."
Recently Frank uncovered a letter from the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service to the Scottish Office stating a number of infected patients couldn't be tracked down without extra resources. Ministers claimed everything had already been done to track down infected patients but Eileen was among those in the dark about contracting hepatitis C.
She had one heart operation in 1985 to insert a pig valve and another in 1991 but it's unclear which blood transfusion infected her. She wasn't diagnosed until 1995 when the hepatitis had caused cirrhosis of the liver. By then she was a dying woman. She had had symptoms for a couple of years but even now GPs haven't been trained to recognise them. Eileen didn't smoke or drink and she did everything that the doctors told her to. Roseleen said: "Everyone loved my mum. She was just a kind, happy person who knew she had been given this chance with the heart valve. "Whatever a doctor told her to do, she did it to the absolute letter and she never complained." Even her medical records noted how pleasant she was.
She reluctantly went to her GP in 1993 after months of feeling weak and lethargic. When blood tests showed her liver function was impaired the doctor started to question how much she was drinking. Annette said: "My mother was completely teetotal. She just kept asking her 'How much alcohol do you drink?' and my mum kept saying she didn't drink. "The blood tests would come back and she would say 'Are you sure you're not drinking? You must be'.
"That really upset my mum."
The problem was blamed on her heart valve and Eileen continued to feel so weak that at times she had to use a wheelchair. In early 1995 her stomach was swelling, her liver and spleen was enlarged and the suspicion was that she had lymphoma.
She was admitted to Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow for investigation, and a liver biopsy revealed she had cirrhosis of the liver and hepatitis C. They were told she had contracted hepatitis fromone of the blood transfusions given to her during a heart operation. Ironically her heart valve was working perfectly. Annette said: "All she knew was that she had cirrhosis of the liver and that was like a death sentence. "She was angry and she remained angry about getting hepatitis C until the day she died. ''No one gave us any help and advice. No one told my mother what to do or how to deal with her condition." It was only because Annette was a nurse that she was able to tell her sisters and her mother to be careful of spreading the infection.
Before the diagnosis Annette was living at home and all the girls had borrowed their mum's earrings, shared nail clippers and tweezers which could have caused cross infection through blood from a nick. Annette had cleaned up Eileen's blood from a urine infection without realising her mother had hepatitis. Roseleen said: "If my mum had been traced that risk would have been eliminated but even after diagnosis, not one person ever came to tell my mum what and what not to do. "To me that's scandalous."
Annette called the blood transfusion service but was offered no advice and was told the blood had been given in good faith. Annette had to organise her own hepatitis test which thankfully came back negative. Eileen was too ashamed to tell her two brothers she had it because of the stigma. Roseleen said: "In hospital there was a sticker in front of her case notes - 'hepatitis C risk' - and she was mortified, she knew people who worked there." She was also paranoid that she would get a cut and spread the disease.
Eileen was not told where the blood had come from, only that some batches were from American and Scottish prisoners - a high-risk group. Roseleen said: "Imagine my mother, a wee woman from Glasgow, being told she might have got blood from American prisoners." As far as the family are aware, there was no attempt to trace the other recipients of the blood she received. Roseleen said: "The next move should have been to do that. It is incredible that you could be walking about and you don't know you have it until you get liver damage. By then it's too late."
The women say it is impossible to get closure until their questions are answered. In the meantime their anger remains fresh. Roseleen said: "I have two children who don't have their grandmother, that person who goes to school plays and surprises them on birthdays and Christmas. "We were so close to my mum and now we don't have that. "It's all the little things you miss that mean so much."
Frank Maguire is determined the fight will go on even though Andy Kerr has said no to a public inquiry. He said: "The minister has said there is not enough new evidence to hold an inquiry but where is the old evidence? "We still don't know why and how this happened because no one will tell us. "He says it all happened a long time ago but there are people dying now because of it.
"We still want an inquiry, we want donors and recipients traced and GPs educated about the situation. "It's a public health issue and we need to know what went wrong, so that it never happens again."
