Last week the Lindsay Tribunal attained the first anniversary of the hearing of evidence in its enquiry into the infection of the national blood supply by the hepatitis C virus and the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. For all concerned, it has been a stressful and often harrowing year, and there is no clear sign that the enquiry (which some thought might conclude in July) is anywhere near its end. Indeed, it took from December 1999 until May 2000 to get from its first sitting to the point of taking evidence. The members of the Irish Haemophilia Society have had to fight every step of the way for the right to have their cases heard in what they see as an appropriate framework.
It remains to be seen how much longer the fight must go on: the Irish Blood Transfusion Service, formerly the Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB), is still claiming privilege over certain confidential documents relevant to the enquiry, although the tribunal is to hear an application from the Haemophilia Society on Tuesday regarding the discovery of those documents, and there are still other relevant issues to be unravelled. At many times since the tragedy of the viral contamination of the blood supply occurred in the 1980s, this State and some of its agencies have acted in a less than generous manner in respect of the victims, whether to the late brave Bridget McCole and her family or to the 220 haemophiliac patients infected (76 of whom have died) and their families.
Despite the obstructions put in the way of the Haemophilia Society, the Tribunal has revealed a great deal. It has heard evidence that blood products manufactured by the BTSB had infected patients. The IBTS had tried to claim that only imported blood products had caused such infections. There has been evidence to show the chaos within the BTSB in the 1980s when there were changes in its executive structures and a catastrophic financial situation which left the organisation and its services strapped for financial resources and may have led to some less-than-safe decisions in respect of the supply of blood products. And there has been some dismaying evidence of failures of the medical care systems to meet adequately the informational and counselling needs of the patients, although some of this evidence has been contradicted.
One thing is clear: the tribunal must continue its useful and revealing work at least until all relevant facets of the cause of the tragedy have been explored. As was stated a year ago when Judge Alison Lindsay and her team started hearing the harrowing evidence from infected haemophiliac patients and their families, these citizens need to know how it all happened if they are to have any hope of coming to terms with the tragedy that befell them at the hands of the State and its agencies. It ill behoves the State or those agencies to put obstacles in the path of their search for truth. Acts of generosity can help to assuage the pain. Unlike the star chamber tribunals going on at the moment, this one is not an enquiry into mere money and political malfeasance. It is about the lives, and the deaths, of citizens at the hands of this State and its agents and officers.