Ministers criticised for handling of the anti D crisis

THE Minister for Health and his predecessor were both criticised for their handling of the anti D crisis yesterday.

Ms Jane O'Brien, chairwoman of the Positive Action group, also told the tribunal of two women in Cork who, like Donor L, had not been told they had tested positive for hepatitis C for years after it was known to the BTSB there. One of the women has a child who is also positive.

It was felt, Ms O'Brien said, that had its infection been disclosed earlier the child might have been successfully treated for the disease.

Ms O'Brien also spoke of the "cold hearted, grossly insensitive" treatment of infected women by the BTSB, and what was perceived as its "callous" approach to them. This led to "resentment", "antagonism" and "hostility" on the part of infected women towards Pelican House.

She was also critical of the Department of Health for taking so long to understand that the infected women "did not share their trust in the system".

Her criticism of Mr Noonan centred on what members of Positive Action saw as his attempts to avoid holding a judicial inquiry into the hepatitis C scandal. When told that documents discovered in preparation for a High Court action being brought by Mrs Brigid McCole indicated the BTSB was aware that Patient X suffered from infective hepatitis when they took plasma donations from her in 1976, he insisted this was not new information.

"Both he and the Minister of State in the Department of Health vigorously denied any contradiction existed between what we saw as the new revelations of infective hepatitis and what the Expert Group was told." Mr Noonan "tried to convince us that the Expert Group knew about (the) infective hepatitis even though we, said it was nowhere in the report, she said.

Mr Howlin, she recalled, had advised representatives from the group at a meeting in September 1994 that women who were suffering financial distress due to infection with anti D should contact their community welfare officers.

When the community welfare officers were contacted they said they had no role in the matter. She also told the tribunal that following a first meeting with Mr Howlin on June 14th, 1994, there was no response to a detailed submission they made until August that year, and no response at all by him to their request that the BTSB be required to circulate a letter from Positive Action to infected women.

In April 1995, when Mr Noonan was Minister, the Department intervened, and the BTSB began circulating Positive Action literature to infected women. They had been trying to do so for over a year.

Attempts in April 1994 "to make contact with other women in the same predicament" with BTSB help did not succeed.

Following a meeting with Ms O'Brien, Dr Emer Lawlor of the BTSB "indicated that would not be a difficulty". She forwarded a letter to Dr Lawlor, for circulation.

On April 21st Dr Lawlor rang her to say there could be "logistical" problems in distributing it. On May 3rd Ms O'Brien got a letter from the BTSB saying the board had considered the matter and had decided it could not distribute the letter as its doing so might be interpreted as endorsement for the group and could bed seen as a breach in confidentiality.

A "logistical problem had become a confidentiality problem," commented Ms O'Brien, who said she found the May 3rd letter "unconvincing".

Members of Positive Action became convinced "there was an attempt (by the BTSB) to isolate women from each other, to keep them apart, and this was seen as a deliberate management of the situation," Ms O'Brien said.

"There was an attempt to blame their (women's) hepatitis on anything other than the contamination of anti D. It was part of a damage limitation exercise."