The wife of a man who passed on the AIDS virus to her after receiving infected blood gave testimony at the Lindsay tribunal yesterday. She was the first spouse of a haemophiliac infected by contaminated blood products to give evidence to the tribunal.
Her husband tested HIV-positive almost a year after screening for the virus was introduced by the Blood Transfusion Service Board, the tribunal heard. "It should not have happened," his 38-year-old wife told the tribunal. Her husband died in 1993 and she was diagnosed HIV-positive three years later. Using the pseudonym Mary and speaking from behind a screen to protect her anonymity, she said her husband kept two bottles of the batch of blood product which he believed had contaminated him until 1990, when he received compensation. The bottles had BTSB labels saying they were heat-treated.
Her husband had tested negative for HIV in October 1985, the month screening for the virus was introduced by the BTSB, she said. He had blood tests every six months and in August 1986 he was diagnosed HIV-positive. "He couldn't believe it. He thought he was out of the woods," she said.
Her husband was HIV-positive when she married him in 1990 but his prognosis was good, he seemed healthy, he had a great personality, he loved sailing and yachting and was a brilliant cook.
A year later tests showed he also had hepatitis C but he still felt healthy and set up his own business in April 1992. However, by September 1992 his health was deteriorating. He lost weight rapidly.
He was admitted to St James's Hospital at Christmas and suffered liver failure twice, but Mary was never told this.
In 1993 he was losing faith in his medical team and was refer red by his GP to an infectious diseases consultant who had just taken up duty in Beaumont Hospital. He was happy with this team and they gave him lots of hope, but he died shortly afterwards of AIDS-related illnesses.
Mary said she nearly collapsed when she received his death certificate. It said "AIDS - eight years" and she had a terrible battle to have it changed.
There was an arrangement at the time that the last cause of death such as liver failure would be recorded on the certificate and it took months for the Department of Health to agree to this, she said.
After his death, Mary went to work abroad and by May 1996 returned home, feeling run down. She went to her doctor and tested HIV-positive. She said she felt luckier than most as triple therapy treatment, which had proved effective, was introduced the month she was diagnosed.
"I'm luckier than most. It seems like somebody was looking over me," she said, adding that she still worked full-time.
She said somebody was to blame for her husband's infection and she wanted the tribunal to find out who. "People knew what was happening and the BTSB was written all over the bottles that Norman used to use. Somebody knew contaminated products were going out," she said.
The tribunal, which is investigating how 260 haemophiliacs in the State became infected with HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated blood products, also heard yesterday from a farmer with hepatitis C whose relationship with two women broke up once he told them of his infection which, he said, was like a time bomb, and from a man in his late 20s who found out he was HIV-positive just before his Leaving Certificate.
He was checking through a file belonging to his parents when he made the discovery.
He went to university but during the 1990s his health deteriorated and his immune system reached a "horrifying" low level. His parents took him from Cork to a hospital in Dublin. He went on quadruple therapy - 17 tablets a day - and within three months his immune system had recovered.
"If I had remained under the supervision of Cork University Hospital, I don't know how low I would have been allowed to get before action was taken," said Garret, who also has hepatitis B and C.