‘Hold those to account’ over blood scandal

MP will co-chair Parliamentary group

THOSE RESPONSIBLE for the worst treatment disaster to hit the NHS need to be held to account, a victim from Yorkshire has said.

A public inquiry will consider the treatment of thousands of people in the 1970s and 1980s who were given blood products infected with hepatitis viruses and HIV. Former engineer Glenn Wilkinson, 54, from Hull, spoke as the probe into the deaths of more than 2,400 people who were infected with HIV and Hepatitis C as a result of the scandal began in London.

He said: “We know that the Government missed multiple opportunities to stop the infected blood products getting into our bodies.

“They were warned multiple times and they failed on every occasion which led to so many people being infected.

“We are talking about a community of people being infected with the most horrendous diseases.”

Mr Wilkinson, who was infected with Hepatitis C, after a blood transfusion while getting three teeth removed at Hull Royal Infirmary in 1983. said people could think “it doesn’t affect me”, because they don’t have haemophilia. But in fact anyone who had a blood transfusion prior to 1992 could be at risk, and victims include women who became infected after childbirth, people who had transplants or were on dialysis. He said: “There will be many thousands who don’t know it – Hepatitis C has been called the silent killer.”

THE START of an inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal which left at least 2,400 people dead and “many thousands” potentially unaware they are infected is a day that a key Yorkshire campaigner sometimes thought she would never see.

Hull MP Diana Johnson’s involvement began when a constituent, Glenn Wilkinson, walked into her surgery just before the General Election in 2010.

She has since been “absolutely relentless” – in Mr Wilkinson’s words – fighting for the victims.

Ms Johnson, who is co chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Haemophilia and Contaminated Blood, said her campaigning had been relatively short compared to some, adding: “I thought at times there was no way we would get a public inquiry.”

Last June the MP got six party leaders, including the DUP, to sign a letter calling for a public investigation. It led to an emergency debate and with the Government facing the possibility of a defeat, Prime Minister Theresa May announced a publicly-funded inquiry.

“She was in difficulty and that helped concentrate her mind,” said Ms Johnson.

Ms Johnson said some were cynical because there had been other inquiries, but this was the first to be publicly-funded, to have the full powers of a Judgeled inquiry and the ability to compel witnesses to give evidence. “There is a list of ministers in the health department (at the time) who will be asked to explain what happened when they were ministers,” she said.

Addressing hundreds of people, inquiry chairman, retired judge Sir Brian Langstaff said it is estimated that the number of infected could go far beyond 25,000 adding that there is a “real chance that these estimates may prove right”.

He said: “It is a truly sobering thought that if some of the claims are well-founded – and it is for this inquiry to find out if they are – there may yet be many thousands more who do not feel well, but have not yet been told that the reason for this is that they suffer from Hepatitis C.”

Sir Brian reassured victims that people will be at the heart of the inquiry, which is independent of the Government. He also revealed that the inquiry will not confine itself to London and would aim to conduct hearings all over the country to enable more affected people to come in person. And with allegations of a cover-up, which he said will be investigated, Sir Brian stressed that the probe will be as “open and transparent as it is legally possible to be”.

According to the terms of reference, the inquiry will consider “whether there have been attempts to conceal details of what happened” through the destruction of documents or withholding of information.

It will also consider if those attempts were deliberate and if “there has been a lack of openness or candour” in the response of the Government, NHS bodies and other officials to those affected.

They will be asked to explain what happened. Hull MP Diana Johnson on those who were Ministers at the time of the scandal.