Women’s health scandals are Ireland’s shame
HALLOWEEN 1977 was a day that changed my life. It was the day I became a mother – giving birth to the eldest of my six children.
Unknown to me at the time, or for almost 17 years afterwards, it was also the day I was administered a blood product, Anti-d, contaminated with Hepatitis C.
For me, and too many other women and their families around the country, this month marks 30 years since news broke of the Anti-d/contaminated blood scandal.
On February 22, 1994, the country awoke to news that hundreds of women had been administered a blood product, Anti-d Immunoglobulin, some of which had been contaminated with Hepatitis C.
The Department of Health/blood Transfusion Service Board (now Irish Blood Transfusion Service, IBTS) issued an urgent call that day for women like me – who received Anti-d after giving birth – to attend testing.
SERIOUS
Almost 1,200 of us were found to be infected with Hepatitis C. Less than 500 of us are alive today.
It is hard to explain all that ran through my head that day. I had no idea what Hepatitis C was but the urgent call put out by the State made it clear the situation was serious.
Heading to see my GP, I was worried but also wondered might this news provide answers to the unexplained health issues that had plagued me for years. I battled overwhelming fatigue that left every day a struggle. By 1994, though, I was raising six children while also farming so it was easy to say “of course you’re tired”.
Getting six children out the door to school every day was done with one eye on the clock, desperate to get back to bed. Every day, I was exhausted before the day even began.
Hepatitis C had been silently damaging my liver and making me sick for almost 17 years. I didn’t know it yet, but I wasn’t alone.
All around the country, women had been living with the debilitating impact of Hepatitis C but being dismissed when they sought answers – told their symptoms were simply the result of being mothers.
That they were worn out from the strains of raising families.
But the fatigue we lived with was not normal; it was caused by Hepatitis
C. February 1994 brought answers in that it led to confirmation the Anti-d I’d received had been contaminated with Hepatitis C, which had damaged my liver — the root of my health issues.
However, it also brought fear of stigma. At times, women like me were treated as though we were at fault when State negligence led to us being sick. Anti-d Women fought the shame of having a virus that society did not yet fully understand and which carried with it much stigma in 1994.
In the matter of the Anti-d Scandal, shame and stigma should be carried only by the State and Irish Blood Transfusion Service.
The Health Amendment Act 1996 ultimately legislated for the State to provide all the healthcare needed for those of us affected.
But the fight for the State to take accountability for what was done to us was not easy.
In addition, treatment was gruelling – 48 weeks that left me bedridden much of the time. Though treatment cleared my system of the virus, my body had been badly damaged by then and I live with the effects every day.
Yet, in many ways, I am lucky. I am still here to tell my story; too many friends I met along the way are no longer with us.
For those of us Anti-d Women still living, it is vital that the Health Amendment Act (1996) is fully adhered to and healthcare provided for us accordingly. We fought so hard for accountability to be taken, for appropriate care to be provided for us. And we fought to ensure no other women were ever damaged as we had been.
It is Ireland’s shame that further scandals impacting the health, well-being and lives of its women have come to light since 1994.
All must be done to ensure no more scandals ruin, or rob, the lives of Irish women.
I had fatigue that meant every day was a huge struggle
We fought to ensure other women were not damaged as we’d been