24.09.18
Inquiry into NHS ‘tainted blood’ scandal opens into the death of thousands of victims
The inquiry into the ‘tainted blood’ scandal which is estimated to have killed around 2,000 people who received contaminated blood transfusions has opened today in London.
The public inquiry is investigating how thousands of NHS patients were given blood products and transfusions infected with hepatitis C and HIV during the 1970s and 1980s.
A video commemoration to the victims opened the session with emotionally charged testimonies detailing how they and their loved ones had contracted potentially fatal viruses.
In a stream of statements, one woman said: “Every time I shut my eyes I was looking at a coffin. I was sure I was going to die.”
Another said: “I lost everything. I lost my whole life the day I found out – everything ended.”
Theresa May announced the first UK-wide public inquiry into the scandal July last year, and first evidencing-taking sessions are scheduled to begin after Easter 2019.
It follows decades of campaigning by victims, backbenchers and pressure groups like Tainted Blood over what is considered to be the worst-ever NHS treatment disaster.
The Department of Health previously said that as many as 30,000 people may have been exposed to blood infections.
Patients with haemophilia and other conditions were given blood plasma from the US which was carrying HIV, hepatitis C viruses and other potentially fatal diseases.
Nearly 3,000 people have died, said a statement read at the inquiry opening session, and the number keeps rising.
Since then, nearly half of the people who were infected have now died, and partners of the victims were also unknowingly infected by their husbands.
Those at the inquiry were told that medical records have gone missing and government documents have been destroyed, and victims were silenced as the whole scandal was covered up.
The treatments used were introduced in the early 1970s as Britain imported supplies from the US to keep up with demand.
The chair of the inquiry and former high court judge, Sir Brian Langstaff, said: “Many of the people infected and their families have campaigned for the inquiry for many years. They helped to shape the inquiry’s terms of reference.
“This is now their opportunity to tell me where they want the inquiry to focus its investigative powers.”
The inquiry could last more than two years, and if it finds culpability then victims may be able to claim large compensation payments.
Langstaff added that the inquiry has already received over 100,000 documents and will likely receive much more, as well as hundreds of witness statements.
He said: “I am grateful for each and every contribution.
“There must, however, still be more who have knowledge, documents and their own accounts to add.
“I know that going over the past can be difficult but I encourage them to come forward.”
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has repeatedly campaigned for an investigation into what he called a “criminal cover-up on an industrial scale.”
Image credit - Moussa81