The Tánaiste and Minister for Health, Ms Harney, has appointed the former leader of the Positive Action group, which represented women infected by contaminated blood products, to the board of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS).
As chair of Positive Action, Ms Jane O'Brien was to the forefront of campaigns for the provision by the State of healthcare and compensation for the 1,200 women infected with the hepatitis C virus as well as for a full investigation into how the contamination scandal had come about. A journalist and mother of two, Ms O'Brien became a founder member of Positive Action in 1994 after discovering that she had been exposed to the hepatitis C virus from a blood product manufactured by the former Blood Transfusion Service Board, the predecessor of the IBTS.
Ms Harney also announced that consultant haematologist at Cork University Hospital, Dr Mary Cahill, had been appointed to the board of the IBTS.
A second medical consultant, Dr Helen Enright has been re-appointed for a three-year term.
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