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, the public inquiry concluded on Monday May 20 after seven years of work. . This scandal, which saw thousands of people infected with the hepatitis C virus and HIV after receiving blood transfusions over a period of twenty years, “could have been largely avoided”, states in its report the former judge Brian Langstaff, who chaired the inquiry.
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 British public health service, the NHS. .
At the end of seven years of work, the collection of more than 5,000 testimonies and the examination of tens of thousands of documents, the final report – weighing more than 2,000 pages – and eagerly awaited by the victims and their relatives, was made public on Monday. It describes the errors of the medical sector, public authorities and manufacturers which led to the contamination of thousands of people throughout the country.
The central issue of compensation
In 2022, after the publication of a progress report, Judge Brian Langstaff called on the government to pay immediate compensation to the victims, without waiting for the end of the investigations. The government immediately announced a first payment of 100,000 pounds (119,000 euros) to several thousand people.
The final cost of compensation is expected to reach several billion pounds and is due to be announced on Tuesday. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is due to speak to Parliament on Monday afternoon.
“He must apologize on behalf of everyone who has failed us over the years, including the governments who hid the truth from us for so long,” Andrew Evans, co-founder of the group Tainted Blood, told Sky News on Monday. “contaminated blood”), hemophiliac and himself contaminated with HIV and hepatitis C at the age of 5.