Infected blood scandal shows that patient care isn’t always the priority in the medical profession - Daxa Patel

I am fed up with hearing of instances where patients are treated with contempt. It must be said most of those in the medical profession are in it because they care but there are decision makers who are not fit to be decision makers.

According to the BBC’s excellent analysis of the Infected blood scandal we know more. More than 30,000 people were exposed to hepatitis C due to infected blood transfusion in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

Two groups of people were exposed to the infected blood scandal. Haemophiliacs or those with similar blood disorder, a rare genetic condition which means their blood did not clot properly.

The second group of people affected were patients given contaminated blood transfusions, during childbirth, surgery, or medical treatment between 1970 and 1991.

In the 1970s a new treatment was offered to replace the missing clotting agents, made up from donated human blood plasma. Unfortunately, the batches were contaminated with deadly viruses. The consequences, around 1,250 people with bleeding disorder went on to develop HIV and hepatitis C, including 380 children.

About two-thirds died of Aids related illnesses and some unintentionally passed on the HIV to their partners. Another 2,500 to 5,000 developed hepatitis C which can cause cirrhosis and liver cancer.

Now, genuine medical mistakes can happen but so can avoidable deaths and blunders. The NHS and the Government like to often make out that claimants claiming medical compensation are doing this for ulterior motives, but the truth is anything but. Most claimants suffered profound consequences due to medical errors and this infected blood scandal is just another example.

This should never have happened but what is so tragic about this is the painful evidence given by witnesses, mainly patients and family members. It seems this scandal could have been avoided and minimised earlier.

The human stories are harrowing. Women with hepatitis C following childbirth struggled to get doctors to take their health concerns seriously or even test them for hepatitis C. Though efforts have been made over the years to improve the language used by those in charge of our care, sadly, when it comes to women and older people they tend to draw the short straw. I recall more than once while reviewing medical notes in childbirth cases where the medical records had comments like, ‘poor maternal effort’, or ‘failure to progress’. A tiny sample of insensitive comments written by clinicians.

Contempt, judgement, lack of respect and disregard for patient care appear in the way the NHS and the Government have managed this scandal. Women with infected blood appear to have been dismissed when they sought help for unexplained health issues. They were told it was the menopause, or just mood swings. Sadly, many lived with undetected hepatitis C for decades, and some victims died prematurely and needlessly.

During the pandemic, the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson presided over the press conferences with a strapline ‘Save the NHS’, what seems to have been forgotten is saving the patients.

When I heard recently that the NHS budget for maternity care is £3bn and around £1.1bn has been paid out in maternity medical negligence cases, it was hardly a surprise.

No amount of compensation or apologies will rectify the injustice suffered by those due to the infected blood scandal or due to maternity care blunders, or indeed due to mishandling during the pandemic but by bringing this out into the public domain after years of campaigning by the victims we at least know that patient care and safety are not always a priority.

To add insult to injury, evidence shows in all these scandals that the harm and loss of life could have been prevented as there was prior knowledge of the issues before the victims came out to speak about their trauma.

With the infected blood scandal, the NHS staff recognised that this form of hepatitis could be fatal as early as 1980. Value for money judgements were made instead of what was in the patients’ best interest, as to where resources should be deployed.

​Daxa Manhar Patel is a leadership coach, author and solicitor.