IBTS sued over delays in notifying three Hepatitis C victims

THE Irish Blood Transfusion Service yesterday confirmed it is being sued by three people who tested positive for hepatitis C but who were not informed for a number of years that they had the virus.

A spokesperson said the cases related to a delay in notifying donors who had tested positive for the potentially fatal condition in the Munster region. Confirmation of the three cases comes less than a month after a man who contracted hepatitis C at birth settled his action against the IBTS and the State for €2m. Contaminated Anti-D blood product was administered to his mother at the time of his birth.

Yesterday, the whistleblower doctor who uncovered the hepatitis C scandal which left well over 1,000 women infected, postponed a planned press conference after she was warned by superiors that she was breaching its code of conduct.

A letter sent from the IBTS’s Dublin office warned Dr Joan Power, regional director of the Munster IBTS centre, that she would breach an internal code of conduct if she held a press conference without the prior approval of the chief executive or a designated IBTS spokesperson.

It warned against “the giving of interviews, statements or any other information connected with the services provided by the service” without such sanction.

Dr Power had planned the press conference to outline “profound concerns” she had in relation to the operation of the IBTS. She has been unhappy with the running of the IBTS since she uncovered the hepatitis C scandal in 1994.

Dr Power responded to the warning from IBTS chief executive Andrew Kelly by issuing a statement saying there was “deeply worrying evidence of highly inappropriate external interference with its (IBTS) independence”.

“I require immediate confirmation that the intention of your correspondence is not in any way to impede me in either my constitutional rights as an individual citizen or in my advocacy duty as a medical consultant in bringing issues of the most serious concern into the full light of openness, transparency and accountability,” she added. A copy of Mr Kelly’s letter has been sent by Dr Power to the Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) and Health Minister Mary Harney.

In response to Dr Power’s decision to release correspondence between her and her employers, the IBTS issued a statement saying: “We are aware that a member of staff has issued two items of internal correspondence to the media today. The IBTS has a policy of not responding to any questions about individual staff members.”

An IBTS spokesperson also confirmed a report examining the delay in notifying donors infected with the virus was presented at the board’s meeting on Wednesday.

The report revealed nearly 100 blood donors initially tested positive for the virus in the early 1990s but were not informed at the time. The number was later reduced to 34, after further tests were carried out.