A woman whose husband was infected with HIV through contaminated blood products spoke yesterday about how her family were treated like "lepers" in their local community.
Giving evidence under the pseudonym Rebecca, the mother described how her two youngest children used to come home from school crying. There was a lot of ignorance about AIDS at the time, she said.
Because of the taunting, she said, her two youngest children stopped going to school altogether. This was her "biggest regret", that "they did not have the education they should have". Rebecca described how her husband's personality changed after he began to use concentrates to treat his haemophilia, around 1980.
He started drinking heavily and would not sleep at night.
She said "without a doubt" the concentrates were responsible for the change and his behaviour became so erratic she was forced to leave home with their children. The two youngest later returned to nurse him, including a daughter who, at 13, administered injections of concentrate.
In 1986, aged 14-15, the same girl was informed by a nurse at St James's Hospital, Dublin that her father had tested positive for HIV. Rebecca said the nurse told her daughter that her father had been informed of this fact but did not appear to understand.
She added the family never received any counselling or information regarding AIDS.
"We did not get any help from anybody."
Her husband died in 1993.
Asked why she had come to give evidence to the tribunal, Rebecca replied: "I owe it to him".
She said she also wished to understand that everything that happened was not his fault, nor her's, nor their children's.
The tribunal was adjourned until Monday.
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