PATIENT X, one of the two women whose infected plasma was used by Pelican House in the production of anti-D, will not be giving evidence to the tribunal of inquiry into the hepatitis C scandal.
Announcing this yesterday, Mr James Nugent SC, for the tribunal, said she was satisfied with the evidence being presented to the tribunal as opposed to that given to the expert group on the Blood Transfusion Service Board.
He then read out a statement which Patient X had prepared for the inquiry. It said she married in 1969 and had a miscarriage in December of that year. Her first child was born in the Rotunda Hospital on November 12th, 1970, and there were no complications.
She did not know then her blood was group A rhesus-negative, and that her husband had rhesus-positive blood. Nor did she understand the implications of that if they decided to have more children.
She became pregnant again in 1972, and began attending ante-natal classes at the Coombe. On November 1st that year, the hospital wrote to her saying she had rhesus antibodies and they wished to monitor her pregnancy closely.
The baby was born on February 21st, 1973. He was very badly affected due to the incompatibility of her blood type and his. He needed blood transfusions immediately after birth.
In 1975 she became pregnant again. The child was stillborn in August that year, 6 1/2 months into the pregnancy. During the pregnancy, her gynaecologist, Dr McGuinness, had spoken to her about a new treatment called plasmaphoresis. When she became pregnant again in summer 1976, she returned to the Coombe and Dr McGuinness's care.
On September 28th, 1976, she began to attend Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, which was the only one to have a machine available for the plasmaphoresis procedure. It was a cell separator, and would allow for her plasma to be exchanged with new plasma, thus saving her foetus from being attacked by antibodies in her own plasma.
She attended the hospital every third day for exchange treatment. It left her feeling tired, very anxious, and very unwell.
At no stage did she know that the plasma being taken from her was being used in the manufacture of anti-D. As far as she was concerned the hospital staff simply got rid of it once it was taken from her.
She never consented to the plasma being used by any other person, doctor, institute or hospital. She never donated her plasma "or blood to any other hospital or to the BTSB, in particular "as I knew that because I had TB in the past (1963) and had been treated for same that I should never donate blood".
She also remembered having had regular blood transfusions at the Coombe during the pregnancy. Most of theplasma she received at Crumlin was fresh plasma, but she also received some fresh-frozen plasma. She also recalled receiving freeze-dried plasma.
In February 1977 Dr McGuinness, and another doctor whose name she did not know, visited her at her home and took small amounts of blood by pricking her thumb. It sticks in her mind as she thought it odd that they should come to her house, rather than asking her to attend either the Coombe or Crumlin hospitals, and as she was due to go to Crumlin that afternoon anyway for a plasma exchange.
After that she was kept in isolation at the Coombe for 10 or 11 days. She remembers Dr McGuinness telling her she had a flu-like infection and that she had picked it up from the dry powder plasma used in the course of the exchange programme.
