AIDS patient alert at Wexford Hospital

August 1986

There was a full scale AIDS alert at Wexford General Hospital when a patient told medical staff he was an AIDS carrier shortly after being admitted.

The patient, a Dubliner, was kept in isolation during his overnight stay in the hospital before being transferred to a special unit in St James’s Hospital, Dublin, the following day.

The patient’s clothes, the bedclothes in which he slept for the night, and other items he came into contact with at the hospital were burned by staff there after he had been moved on to Dublin.

This week, an Assistant Matron refused to confirm however that an AIDS carrier had been a patient there.

She suggested there should be lots of other things to write about in the news this week instead, and added: ‘I am saying nothing’.

But it has been learned from reliable hospital sources that the Dubliner was admitted following violent incidents in Courtown Harbour, and that shortly after his admission, he announced to staff that he was an AIDS carrier.

Hospital authorities are understood to have been anxious that the incident not receive widespread publicity, so as to avoid a scare.

Meanwhile, on Monday next, a massive nationwide information campaign on AIDS is to be launched by the Department of Health.

In Wexford, it will be co-ordinated by Director of Community Care, Dr. Patrick Judge. ‘We will be aiming to give full, frank, information about the disease,’ said Dr. Judge this week.

The campaign will include a freephone information service.