Dr Paule Cotter conceded yesterday that she was wrong to allow three years to elapse in the 1990s before testing patients for hepatitis C. The consultant haematologist at Cork University Hospital said she should have arranged tests in Dublin after a "reasonably accurate" test became available there in 1992. Instead, she waited until 1995 for similar services in Cork.
Questioned by Mr Gerry Durcan SC, for the tribunal, she agreed there would have been two advantages in having tests done in Dublin: patients could have availed of treatment earlier and the risk of onward infection would have been reduced.
Dr Cotter said she had arranged appointments in Dublin for some of her haemophilia A patients. However, for mild haemophiliacs - for whom there was greatest uncertainty regarding the possibility of infection - no arrangements were made.
Among those who were not tested until 1995 was Ernie, a mild haemophiliac who was infected with hepatitis C through commercial concentrate administered in Cork in late 1982.
Asked why concentrate was given to Ernie rather than locally-made cryoprecipitate - arguably a safer product - Dr Cotter said it was an "emergency situation" and the patient required the most effective clotting agent possible.
Earlier, she said it remained her belief that she informed a haemophiliac, identified by the pseudonym Noel, that he had tested positive for HIV around November 1985. This was despite a lack of documentation to support her evidence, as well as claims by siblings of Noel, who has since died, that he was not told until 1992.
She told Mr Raymond Bradley, solicitor for the Irish Haemophilia Society, that there was a practice of avoiding recording when and how patients were informed of positive test results.