Outrage over request for hep C victims to give blood
Fine Gael health spokesperson Olivia Mitchell said confidence in the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) has hit an all-time low following the revelations.
The Blood Bank admitted that an error was made in asking people infected with hepatitis C to donate blood.
The IBTS was lifting restrictions on donors who suffered from jaundice before the age of 13, and mistakenly contacted hep C victims as well.
Those infected with the virus were mailed as part of an initiative to attract more donors nationwide.
The hepatitis victims were part of 8,000 names on the IBTS donor database.
Ms Mitchell called on Health Minister Micheál Martin to demand assurances that this will never happen again.
“This is inexcusable, what does it take for the IBTS to get its act together? I’m furious about this especially after what has gone on before,” Ms Mitchell said.
The IBTS has insisted that new procedures will ensure the mistake will not be repeated. But the Blood Bank was hit with a similar embarrassment in the late 1990s.
This error prompted Tánaiste Mary Harney to call for the Blood Bank to be replaced with a new service.
In a letter to the Department of Health, Blood Bank chief Andrew Kelly said: “Arising from this error we have changed the coding system so that in future donors who are hepatitis C positive will be deferred with a code that is used exclusively for this purpose.”
