Rishi Sunak, British Prime Minister, presented an official apology to the victims of the tainted blood scandal in the United Kingdom on Monday May 20, during the presentation of the conclusions of a damning investigation for the State. According to it, the result of seven years of work, health and political authorities concealed the truth surrounding the vast contaminated blood scandal which caused nearly 3,000 deaths in the United Kingdom between the 1970s and 1990s.
Thousands of people with hemophilia or who have undergone surgery have been infected with hepatitis C and HIV after receiving blood transfusions.
“I would like to sincerely and unequivocally apologize for this terrible injustice. Firstly, an apology for the failure of the blood policy (…) and the devastating and often fatal impact it has had on so many lives, including the impact of treatments that were known to were contaminated, the lack of response to the risk of imported concentrates, the lack of priority for blood self-sufficiency and the lack of implementation of screening services earlier, as well as the poor management of the response to the “emergence of AIDS and hepatitis C among victims of contaminated blood,” the head of government declared in the House of Commons.
Dissimulations
Rishi Sunak also apologized to the government “for the repeated failure of the state and our health professionals to recognize the harm caused”, for “the institutional refusal to address these failings and, worse yet, to deny them, and even to attempt to conceal them (…), for the loss and destruction of key documents, including ministerial opinions and medical records, and for the appalling time it took to obtain the public inquiry which now sheds light on the matter. »
“The scale of what happened is horrifying,” writes former judge Brian Langstaff, appointed in 2018 to lead this vast public inquiry, in his report of more than 2,500 pages.
After seven years of work, the hearing of thousands of witnesses and the examination of tens of thousands of documents, it concluded that the truth about this tragedy had been “hidden for decades” and that the scandal “could have been largely avoid “.
“This disaster was not an accident. Contaminations took place because those in charge – doctors, blood services and successive governments – did not prioritize patient safety,” insisted Brian Langstaff, quoted in a press release.
Due to blood shortages, the public health service, the NHS, turned to American suppliers who paid their donors, who included prisoners and members of other groups at significant risk of infection. “The response of the authorities in place only aggravated the suffering” of the victims, he adds.
In 2017, the British government, then led by Theresa May, decided to open a public inquiry to shed light on this tragedy, designated as “the worst medical disaster” in the history of the NHS.
“Memorable day”
The report on this “worst medical disaster” lists a long list of criticisms leveled at the authorities. Thus, the health system only informed infected people late, sometimes years later, while the authorities did not withdraw risky blood products when fears about their quality were expressed. The NHS did not sufficiently seek to reduce its imports of blood products from the US, while blood donations in the UK were not adequately monitored.
The report above all denounces the responsibility of successive governments, which were slow to act when the scandal emerged. “Now is the time for national recognition of this disaster and fair compensation to all those who have been harmed,” says Brian Langstaff. Some victims have already received an initial compensation of £100,000 in 2022, following the publication of a progress report, but the final cost, due to be announced this week, is expected to reach several billion pounds.
It’s a “memorable day”, reacted during a press conference, Andrew Evans, co-founder of the group Tainted Blood, hemophiliac and himself infected with HIV and hepatitis C at the age of 5. “Sometimes we have felt like we were shouting into a void over the last forty years. What is happening today shows us that this can happen in the UK,” he added.
Clive Smith, president of the Heomophilia Society, regretted that “unfortunately”, given the time that has passed, “many will not get justice”.
