Madam, – I have seen correspondence which shows that the HSE is planning to introduce a new assessment programme for people who were given contaminated blood products by the State between 1970 and 1994. This was referred to as the Hepatitis C scandal.
The State agreed a health care package for people who suffered as a result of the State’s negligence. This was established by the Health (Amendment) Act 1996. By law, health services must be provided free of charge and are not subject to means tests.
Special medical cards were provided, which allow sufferers to avail of health services as required, and without restriction.
Although it is being put forward as a plan to improve services, the HSE’s plan appears to be an ill-disguised attempt to curtail the entitlement of those infected by contaminated blood products.
The number of people affected is relatively small, and the cost of providing the service is probably not that much. Any saving the State would make by this new plan would be minimal in terms of expenditure, or even wasted expenditure, elsewhere in the state services.
This sorry episode in the State’s history is still very raw for these people and their families. There is still a stigma attached to being infected, and the sufferers, who are mostly women, want to preserve their privacy at all costs. The HSE’s new assessment plan, which includes visits to the homes of the sufferers, seriously compromises this privacy. Groups representing the sufferers strongly object to the plan. They are satisfied with the current system. Apparently, it works well.
Many people believe that the last Rainbow government handled the Hepatitis C scandal very badly – remember, for example, how Mr Noonan dealt with a dying Brigid McCole.
Will this Government, which includes some members of that Rainbow government, allow the HSE inflict additional and unnecessary suffering on these women for the sake of saving a few bob, which it could easily save elsewhere? Surely, lessons have been learned and our State is now more sympathetic to the pain that it has caused these women. – Yours, etc,