Doctor in blistering attack on IBTS

THE doctor who acted as whistleblower in the hepatitis C scandal last night launched a blistering attack on her own organisation, the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS).

Dr Joan Power, regional director of the IBTS, described the conduct of the blood board as “outrageous”, citing a climate of “abuse, abject bias, intolerance, grossly selective media leaks and totally unjust initiatives”.

She added: “A comprehensive impartial inquiry is absolutely necessary if the integrity of a number of key governance processes are to be restored to our organisation.”

Dr Power’s damning statement will further deepen the fiercely territorial rift between management in the Munster IBTS centre, of which she is director, and IBTS headquarters in Dublin.

Dr Power has been at the centre of controversy since she exposed the infection of up to 2,000 women with the hepatitis C virus in the early 1990s.

However, her reputation was subsequently tarnished after it emerged there had been a significant delay in informing 28 Munster patients in the early 1990s that they had tested positive for hepatitis C.

An inquiry into this delay has not yet been carried out.

Dr Power’s hard-hitting statement could be seen as a pre-emptive strike, after it emerged last month that the board of the IBTS had initiated an inquiry into her conduct as regional director.

In a letter to Dr Power, IBTS chief executive Andrew Kelly raised the sale of blood components by the Munster centre to commercial companies contrary to IBTS policy.

However, Dr Power said last night that since her team had unearthed the hep C scandal, “a determined and sustained campaign has been in place to marginalise the role of the Munster centre in Cork. In parallel with this process, I have been the target of a persistent, often vicious and unjust campaign of attack, abuse and vilification”.

A spokesperson for Health Minister Mary Harney last night said she would meet the chairwoman of the IBTS, Maura McGrath, in light of Dr Power’s statement.

Dr Power will hold a press conference in Cork on Friday, during which she will identify what she termed “profound problems” within the IBTS.

The IBTS last night declined to comment.