Posted: 12-Jun-2007 << BACK
By Phil McCabe - Knutsford Guardian - Link to the inquiry website - www.archercbbp.com
A HAEMOPHILIAC who contracted Hepatitis C from contaminated blood has blamed Government inaction for the deaths of thousands of sufferers.
Roddy Morrison, chairman of The Haemophilia Society, was speaking at a public inquiry into the blood donor scandal - one of the worst disasters in the 60-year history of the NHS. Last week Mr Morrison told the inquiry that many of the infections should have been prevented.
"This is not a tragedy, it is a preventable disaster," he said.
Haemophiliacs who were given untested blood before 1992, when the use of new screening tools became standard practice, were at a high risk of contracting HIV and Hepatitis C.
Mr Morrison, of Lilybrook Drive, Knutsford, said that at one point almost 5,000 sufferers - four out of five people with the genetic condition - were infected by contaminated blood.
More than 1,700 have since died.
Successive governments have argued that screening, testing and heat treatment of blood were introduced as soon as possible. But The Haemophilia Society says it has found evidence of a catalogue of life-threatening delays.
Mr Morrison, 38, claimed that the Government:
WASTED a decade before it invested in a self-sufficient blood products laboratory, reducing UK's dependence on blood imports.
PUT further lives at risk by delaying the full roll-out of treatment for another decade.
DELAYED heat treatment by a further 18 months in Scotland, without explanation.
LAGGED behind other countries in introducing treatment and HIV and Hepatitis C tests.
INFORMED many patients of their test results when it was too late and a further 63 sexual partners had become infected, and
DESTROYED or suppressed key Department of Health documents relating to contaminated blood.
He said that victims had received little compensation not because of poor resources, as the Department of Health had claimed, but because of political will.
"The injustice is palpable that people who have been infected with life-threatening diseases in circumstances that should have been avoided are forced to live their curtailed and ailing lives in poverty," he said.
"How can a Government in one of the richest countries in the world act in this way?"
The inquiry, held at the Palace of Westminster in London, will continue on June 14, when MPs - and possibly former ministers - will take the stand.
