Long delays in giving haemophiliacs HIV test results were `inevitable'

Long delays in giving haemophiliacs the results of HIV tests in the mid-1980s were unfortunate but inevitable, a doctor told the tribunal yesterday.

Prof Ian Temperley, the leading treater of haemophiliacs in the State at the time, accepted that the parents of one child had to wait almost two years for the results of an HIV test on their three-year-old son. He was HIV positive and died aged 11.

The child's father, in evidence to the tribunal last May, said he thought the results would be back in days. When they weren't he made several calls and was told if he heard nothing there was nothing to worry about. It was only during the child's check-up in October 1986, 22 months after the test, when he and his wife were asked by Prof Temperley how they were getting on with counselling, that they realised their son was HIV positive.

Prof Temperley said there was a note about counselling on the patient's chart and he assumed the family had been told by another doctor that their child was HIV positive.

Another family, as Mr John Finlay SC, for the tribunal put it, had to bear the "terrible burden" of waiting for and worrying about the results of an HIV test on their son for nine months. Fortunately, he was HIV negative.

The records of a number of other patients revealed they too had to wait several months for HIV test results.

Prof Temperley said he understood the delay created great problems for people but they had occurred for a number of reasons. He said it took longer than expected to convey to patients the results of tests and there was inadequate medical staff to do it quickly.

He added that up to 150 patients were HIV tested after the first Irish haemophiliac was diagnosed with AIDS in November 1984. The blood samples had to be sent to Britain and even when the results came back it was felt they would need to be done again to ensure they were correct, Prof Temperley said. The matter was so serious, he wanted to be sure he was giving people the right results. However, he conceded the initial results were not rechecked.

PROF Temperley said it also took time to get the results back and not all families came immediately to get results once they were called. They may have been afraid of the results and he said he would probably have acted the same way himself.

An additional factor was that many patients did not want the results to be conveyed through their GP as they felt their family doctors weren't necessarily "leak proof".

"There were delays all around as we adjusted to the problem we were facing," he said.

Mr Finlay asked if any thought was put into how people would be told. Prof Temperley replied that thought was given to the process. "I think the amount of time involved was underestimated," he said.

Counsel suggested he should have sought additional medical staff. Prof Temperley said he did not fully comprehend at the time the "degree of requirement" but he had sought extra social workers from St James's Hospital.

The professor went on sabbatical for a number of months in 1985. Counsel asked if he should have postponed his sabbatical given the HIV problem among haemophiliacs at the time. Prof Temperley said he had to get away for a break. He had been working long hours setting up services for haemophiliacs and patients with other blood problems since the 1960s and in 1982 he fell ill.

"I suppose it was associated with the stress. I was treated then and am still being treated for that particular problem," he said.

There were now several consultants doing the work he had had to do, he added.