The Blood Transfusion Service Board has appointed a new chief executive officer to replace Mr Liam Dunbar, who retired on health grounds in December. He is Mr Martin Hynes, who will take up the position on July 1st.
Since December Mr Tom O'Dwyer has been acting CEO of the BTSB, on secondment from the Southern Health Board. He was not an applicant for the position as CEO.
Mr Hynes was previously the programme manager (general) with the South Eastern Health Board, with responsibility for acute hospitals and related capital expenditure. Before that he was the programme manager for community care, the non-hospital-based health and social services.
He joined the SEHB as programme manager with responsibility for special hospitals and previously worked in the Department of Health, planning the national psychiatric service.
He will join the national medical director, Dr William Murphy, and the national donor organiser, Mr Tim O'Connell, appointed a few weeks ago, to form a new management team at the head of the BTSB. This will seek to restore public confidence in the body and increase blood supplies.
The credibility of the BTSB was seriously hit by the hepatitis C scandal when it was revealed that up to 1,600 women had been infected by blood products contaminated by the virus.
As well as the women who received hepatitis C through products they took while pregnant to protect them from an adverse reaction to their baby's blood, a number of people who received blood transfusions were also affected. So were haemophiliacs, some of whom had earlier been exposed to the AIDS virus as well as the hepatitis C virus through contaminated blood products.