The Scottish Government’s Infected Blood Inquiry Report Oversight and Assurance Group published its minutes today. This reminded me, as it will others, of a tragic story of Glasgow’s child haemophiliacs.
According to the Guardian in April 2024, cheap infected blood products based on blood from Arkansas prisoners began to be used across the UK after the Labour Government, in 1976, signed the deal, despite warnings from experts.
BBC Scotland pointed out:
One area where Scotland differed from the rest of the UK is that the vast majority of infections came from its own blood donations. In the 1970s and 80s, the country was largely self-sufficient in blood products.
and you have to read on to find:
Although most of the blood used in Scotland was from Scottish donations, the exception was Yorkhill hospital in Glasgow where children were treated for haemophilia. They regularly received plasma products sourced from paid donors in the United States that were known to be high risk. Most of the children were infected with HIV or hepatitis C by the age of five. Some went on to develop AIDS. Their families want to know why clinicians chose American products ahead of Scottish blood and why there were delays to the introduction of heat treatment.
Yorkhill continued to use the infected supply until 1984, after other hospitals had stopped, and according to BBC Scotland in July 2019.
Euan McDougall was diagnosed with HIV in 1985, aged almost eight. Mr McDougall wept as he told how his son suffered bouts of paralysis and gradually went blind before dying in January 1994. On attempting to access his son’s medical records, he was told there was no trace of them. He said: “The hospital records disappeared, and are gone, are destroyed.” Mr McDougall said he wanted to know why Yorkhill continued using American Factor VIII when elsewhere in Scotland its use had stopped, and he also questioned when heat-treated products had started being produced.
Who might have, at an early stage, have acted on behalf of these folk in Yorkhill? Did they have MPs and councillors back then? These days, write to these politicians and they can be quite effective in pushing institutions and organisations to do something.
Which party might that have been?
Labour MPs and a Labour city council, throughout the blood scandal and for decades before it, but they did FA because they were told what to do by London Labour HQ as they are today.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-48850969
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