By waiting until 1996 to find out what happened to HIV-positive blood donations, the BTSB not only ignored its duty of care to those infected by them "but also its duty of care to the population at large," the Lindsay tribunal was told yesterday.
In a closing submission to the inquiry, Mr James Connolly SC, counsel for a Kilkenny health worker infected with HIV through a blood transfusion, said the blood bank's decision not to carry out a full "look-back" in 1991, despite having a full list of infected donors, "seems highly questionable ethically, given the health risks involved for the recipient of a contaminated transfusion and the risks of onward infection."
There was no logical reason, he said, for not introducing a look-back programme at the same time as the introduction of HIV-testing and screening in 1985.
"The introduction of testing and the decision not to introduce look-back was, in fact, an artificial protection for the community and one which should have been recognised as such."
Mr Connolly's client, a former nurse, identified by the pseudonym Mary Murphy, was infected through a transfusion of blood which had been donated by "Donor A" on July 16th, 1985. This was three months prior to the introduction of HIV-screening by the BTSB.
Donor A made a further blood donation on September 1st, 1986. A HIV test result then confirmed he was positive.
It would appear, said Mr Connolly, "that for no justifiable reason", no steps were taken at this point to establish whether Donor A had made previous donations "much less to trace any persons who received such donations."
It was notable in this regard, he said, that Donor A had in 1974 tested positive for hepatitis B, and subsequently tested positive for hepatitis C, but "was not debarred from future donations despite these test results".
Mr Connolly said it was clear the BTSB was aware of an AIDS risk from blood transfusion from 1983 onwards "and that made it all the more incumbent" on the agency to introduce screening and testing far earlier than October 1985. The BTSB's "wait and see" policy was misplaced, he said, and the reasons proffered by the agency to justify this were "not sustainable."
He added that screening procedures would have put in place appropriate precautions which ought to have prevented Ms Murphy contracting HIV.
The tribunal was adjourned until Monday.
