It was nine months after she had gone into hospital with gallstones, where she received a routine blood transfusion. Her mother haemorrhaged in her liver, and the next day she was dead. The family were astonished to be told that she had Hepatitis C, and doubly shocked to learn that they couldn’t see her because her body was sealed due to contagion risk, leading them to suspect she was HIV positive.
Morgan, who was pregnant at the time, said: “I went into full-blown miscarriage. I was hysterical.” That was 35 years ago, and the family now know Morgan’s mother died because she was given infected blood. Yet Morgan has found herself forced to “keep reliving” the horror through the infected blood compensation scheme.
Like many other victims of the scandal and their families, she has been asked to dig out decades-old medical records to prove she qualifies, despite the public inquiry’s recommendations that eligibility be determined “on the balance of probability”. I cannot get them,” said Morgan. Infected blood campaigners who spoke to the Guardian shared their fury that thousands like Morgan face being locked out of the Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) payment scheme due to its stringent approach.
Rachel Halford, the chief executive of the Hepatitis C Trust, said this was “placing an intolerable burden on people who have already endured decades of injustice”. Victims and bereaved families had been asked to prove “even the most basic of things”, such as whether they lived with their deceased spouses or siblings, she added. Some have had to show old school records, tenancy agreements, utility bills or family photos.
Halford said the community hoped that Andy Burnham, who has long campaigned for victims of the infected blood scandal to receive justice, would offer his support. Yet Rosie McKearney, a policy specialist at the Hepatitis C Trust, said the community was “shocked” that Burnham had moved responsibility for the scandal from a cabinet-level secretary of state to a junior minister. Research from the Haemophilia Society suggests that two years since the IBCA’s inception just 15% of projected compensation claims have been dealt with.
In a letter sent to the IBCA’s chief executive, David Foley, the campaigners said they were “concerned and angry at the lack of progress”, especially its “unreasonable and sometimes impossible bureaucratic demands”. The Haemophilia Society is calling for regulatory change to shift the burden of evidence from applicants to the state, meaning that all applicants with a bleeding disorder would be entitled to compensation unless proved otherwise. Kate Burt, its chief executive, said that the current system was “putting haemophilia treatment centres under intolerable pressure”, with staff “asked to sift through patients’ medical notes to find evidence”, knowing that errors could cost the applicant thousands of pounds.
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