A doctor being sued for his role in the hepatitis C contamination scandal is running a private blood testing service. Dr Terry Walsh, the Blood Transfusion Service Board's former chief medical consultant, is operating a paternity testing service.
Last night Ms Jane O'Brien, spokeswoman for Positive Action, the group for women with hepatitis C infected through anti-D, said members "will be shocked to learn that Dr Walsh continues to work in medical practice".
"It would have been our understanding following his golden handshake, and the manner of his retirement from the BTSB, that he would cease to be involved in medical practice," she said.
The "golden handshake" negotiated between Dr Walsh and the BTSB is estimated to be worth up to £600,000, including pension entitlements. A family member said yesterday that Dr Walsh was not available to comment. He is being sued by the BTSB for costs incurred as a result of the hepatitis C contamination.
It was revealed in April 1997 that Dr Walsh, a consultant haematologist, was involved in offering blood and tissue typing parentage testing with two laboratory technicians still employed by the BTSB, in a company called Paternity Test Services. The BTSB was listed as offering a blood and tissue type paternity testing service in the Irish Medical Directory.
Paternity testing had been carried out at the blood bank until 1984 and then it was transferred to the private company set up by the BTSB employees with Dr Walsh acting as a consultant.
At that time a spokeswoman for Cellmark Diagnostics, which carries out such testing in the UK, said Dr Walsh would draw blood for the company and send it to their laboratory for testing.
Now operating from his home as Parentage Testing, Dr Walsh advises those seeking information that the tests are carried out at St Bartholomew's and the Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry in London, "who will be responsible for the investigation".
Three kinds of tests are offered - conventional testing for £240 sterling and testing with an option also to test DNA, if necessary, at a cost of £435, with a refund if DNA tests are not found to be necessary. If conventional and DNA testing are requested from the outset, the cost is £435. Sampling and other charges "at this end" cost £85. The sampling is carried out in Dublin, he explains.
Dr Walsh's testing service is listed with Cherish, the organisation for single parents and pregnant women, and Treoir, the national federation of agencies and services for unmarried parents and their children. When contacted both said that while they list the service it does not mean they are offering a recommendation.
A woman who had contacted both, but who did not wish to be named, said she knew the options for paternity testing here were limited but would like to have known who Dr Walsh was before deciding whom to do the test with. It is possible to contact Cellmark in the UK, who send a blood testing kit to a nominated doctor here.
In Mr Justice Finlay's report of the hepatitis C tribunal, Dr Walsh was found to have been in neglect of his duty for failing to recommend against using the plasma of a woman, known as patient X, as soon as he learned of her jaundice and hepatitis.
At the time of the anti-D infection Dr Walsh was the most junior of the BTSB's three medical officers, but he had responsibility for donors. His response was to do nothing and he appeared to have "a vague hope that by ignoring the problem it would go away", the report said.