Query on hepatitis C data in dumped files

A CALL has been made for the HSE to confirm that medical records found dumped in Co Cork included files on women who suffered from hepatitis C.

Kathleen Lynch (Lab, Cork North-Central) told the Dáil those files should now be made available.

“The files which have been uncovered are the very files which could not be discovered for women who were searching for their files in relation to hepatitis C and the whole anti-D debacle. All of those files were from the seventies and the eighties.”

She said that “women who could not prove that the anti-D, the immunoglobulin they got was contaminated, were the women whose files were destroyed or in this case had gone missing”.

The files were found at a site on Glounthaune being cleared for the development of the east Cork railway line. They contained the medical records of hundreds of patients at the former Cork Regional and St Finbarr’s hospitals. Ms Lynch wanted to know if the HSE had taken the records back into its possession and “are they going to contact the people involved to let them know and to reassure them because that’s what it’s about – it’s about reassurance and confidence in our health service”.

Minister of State Michael Kitt said the HSE was undertaking a “full investigation to establish the facts and determine how the files came to be disposed of in this inappropriate manner”. The initial inspection indicated that the records date back to before 1983 and “HSE security staff have been deployed on the site and nothing can be removed until inspected by Cork Co Council’s waste enforcement officer”. The HSE had established a lo-call number, 1850 742000, to deal with public inquiries.

Ms Lynch asked that a serious look be taken to see if some of the files are those “originally sought by women in relation to hepatitis C and, if they are, will they now be made available”.

Outlining HSE file storage guidelines, Mr Kitt said that “the HSE South has advised that since the mid-1980s hospital records are stored indefinitely and that prior to then certain inactive hospital records would have been sent for microfilming and then for appropriate disposal of paper records.

“Since 1993, hospital records are confidentially archived and stored by a professional data storage company”.