The Council of Europe was misled by the Blood Transfusion Service Board in 1988 when it claimed variations in hospital records made it impossible to trace persons who might have received infected blood transfusions, the haemophilia tribunal heard yesterday.
Dr Emer Lawlor, deputy medical director of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (formerly the BTSB), said the information given to the council was "misleading" and "puzzling". However, she said there may have been a reason for it.
She was responding to questions from Mr James Connolly SC, for the Kilkenny healthcare worker who contracted HIV from a blood transfusion she received to treat her anaemia in 1985. She tested HIV positive in 1996.
A document opened to the tribunal by Mr Connolly showed the Council of Europe was told in 1988 it was impossible to introduce a look-back programme in Ireland. The reason given by the BTSB's chief medical consultant at the time, Dr Terry Walsh, was: "Variability of hospital transfusion record systems causes problems."
Dr Lawlor agreed with counsel that from the documents she had reviewed there was nothing to show hospitals had been asked about their records at this stage.
Counsel for Dr Walsh, Mr Charles Meenan SC, said the first time the concept of look-back was mentioned to the board of the BTSB was in 1989 when his client was chief medical consultant.
Dr Walsh would give evidence that he met resistance when he suggested a look-back, he said.
He added that Dr Walsh would say in evidence that there was a difficulty at the time over hospitals keeping records. Dr Lawlor agreed some hospitals would have kept better records than others but said tracing would not have been impossible.
To further questions from Mr Meenan, Dr Lawlor said she might have been a bit unfair to Dr Walsh in her evidence last Friday when she said he had given her erroneous information about the BTSB's role in infecting haemophiliacs.
She had said Dr Walsh suggested to her that BTSB-made Factor 9 clotting agent had probably not caused the infection of seven haemophiliacs with HIV when in fact it had.
Yesterday she said the issue arose in "a passing conversation" and it was suggested to her by Dr Walsh that commercial Factor 9 could also have been responsible.
Cross-examined by Mr Martin Hayden, counsel for the Irish Haemophilia Society, Dr Lawlor said she first learnt that BTSB Factor 9 had infected the seven haemophiliacs when she was preparing for the tribunal in 1996.
Mr Hayden asked if there was no obligation on the BTSB to tell haemophiliacs of her discovery at that stage.
Dr Lawlor said the tribunal was going to be told, and at the time it was not known that the tribunal would not hear evidence for a number of years.