Hepatitis C victim still too ill for transplant

CONSULTANTS at a London hospital say a 32-year-old Irish woman suffering from hepatitis C is still too ill to undergo a life-saving liver transplant.

Doctors at Kings College Hospital are battling to improve the condition of Sylvia O'Leary, a mother of two from Ballincollig, Co Cork.

"She is still in a critical condition and there are no plans for her to undergo a transplant in the near future," Kings College Hospital spokeswoman Claire Pirie said yesterday.

Mrs O'Leary's husband, Des, remains at his wife's bedside in the intensive care unit.

He flew out to London with her on December 28 in a special air ambulance when doctors at Cork University Hospital decided she was well enough to travel. A few days prior to that Mrs O'Leary was admitted to Cork University Hospital suffering from liver failure.

If she undergoes a liver transplant at Kings College it will be her third such operation since 1991.

It was during that Department of Health-approved operation, when she was just 21 years old, that Mrs O'Leary contracted hepatitis C from contaminated blood.

She underwent her second liver transplant in 2001.

Prior to Christmas the Department of Health agreed a compensation package, believed to be in the region of €1 million, with Mrs O'Leary's legal representatives.

Her family had earlier accused the Department of Health of deliberately delaying the signing of the compensation package because her health had deteriorated so badly.

Minister for Health Micheál Martin refuted the claim.