No formal system was in place to ensure spouses and partners of all HIV-positive haemophiliacs were screened for the virus in the late 1980s, it emerged at the tribunal yesterday.
Prof Ian Temperley, former director of the National Haemophilia Treatment Centre, said wives and partners of HIV-positive haemophiliacs who asked for HIV tests were given them, and he believed doctors in outpatient clinics would have suggested testing to women who attended with their husbands or partners.
The tribunal has heard that a number of wives of infected haemophiliacs contracted HIV, and it was known in 1987 that over 5 per cent of partners of infected haemophiliacs in the UK had developed HIV.
Counsel for the Irish Haemophilia Society, Mr Martin Hayden SC, asked Prof Temperley why all partners were not screened here. Prof Temperley said it may not have been done systematically, but many partners were tested.
Mr Hayden asked Prof Temperley if a woman who gave evidence using the pseudonym Mary had been offered testing. Mary (38) had told the tribunal it was three years after her husband, Norman, died of AIDS-related illnesses in 1993 that she discovered she was HIV-positive.
Prof Temperley said he felt sure Mary could have had a HIV test if she wanted it. "It may well be there was not a structured thing at that time but people's partners were being tested".
Mr Hayden put it to him that Mary felt she did not get counselling after Norman was later diagnosed with hepatitis C. Prof Temperley said he felt Norman certainly got advice in relation to his hepatitis C.
Counsel also suggested to him that he should have advised Mary to get a HIV test earlier. Prof Temperley said he did not know if she was so advised. She may not have agreed to a test, he said.
He added he was very sad about what happened to Norman and Mary.
Counsel suggested to him it was not until the IHS asked for wives and partners to be tested for hepatitis C in the early 1990s that they were screened. Prof Temperley said that may have been the case.