Tribunal alone can decide who is accountable for anti D contamination

SOME days ago Mr Vincent Browne sent a letter to me posing a number of questions. It was obvious from the tone and content of these questions that I was to be Mr Browne's target of the week.

It was also obvious to me that Mr Browne had taken little time to actually read the Report of the Expert Group (The Miriam Hederman O'Brien Report).

I was surprised then after all that to read in his column that he felt I should have to "walk the plank of accountability" for my handling of the issue.

There are many tragic aspects to this crisis which has befallen our health services. We may never hear many of the personal stories of the women and their families behind this awful incident.

But I believe we will get to the bottom of how and why it happened through the Tribunal of Inquiry which the Minister for Health, Mr Michael Noonan TD, has set up.

It is important both for the women and their families, and for the public interest, that all of the facts are brought out in the open. I will happily appear before the tribunal when it is set up, to lay out my role in managing the crisis.

In the meantime, it is important that the information that we do have most coming from the expert group which I, as Minister at the time, set up, is presented in its proper context and in perspective.

Several hundred women and some of their family members were infected by a life threatening virus through the negligence of a State body over a period which began 17 years ago.

After this awful tragedy was brought to light on February 17th, 1994, I, as Minister for Health, put in place a screening and public information programme and an expert inquiry within days. It was done so swiftly that I was accused of scaremongering.

Since that date it is my information that no one has been infected by the hepatitis C virus through contaminated anti D. That is the record.

TWO individual charges were levelled at me by Vincent Browne in his article of Wednesday, October 23rd. The first for which I take responsibility, was the issuing by a junior official of a retrospective product authorisation for anti D for a five year period which ended on March 31st, 1993. This was done without my knowledge as a delegated function, and I agree with the criticism levelled at the procedure by the Hederman O'Brien Report.

Because of reforms begun by me while Minister for Health, the Minister and the Department now no longer have any role or function in product authorisations.

Having said that, the retrospective authorisation of the product should not have happened. However, it did not lead to the anti D product being administered to one single person.

The second charge concerned the incomplete withdrawal of the antiD product. When the contamination of anti D was brought to my Department's notice on February 17th, 1994, I immediately ordered the total and urgent withdrawal of the Irish made anti D product and, its replacement with a Canadian product which was specially flown in the following day.

The Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB) notified all hospitals and maternity units by telephone on Friday, February 18th, 1994, of the withdrawal of the product. This was followed up by written notification dated Monday, February 21st.

Press statements were made by the BTSB announcing the withdrawal of the anti D product on Monday, February 21st, 1994 and I made detailed statements to the Dail and Seanad on the February 22nd and 23rd.

THE Hederman O'Brien Report identified the fact, that eight doses of the Irish anti D product were administered after the product had been withdrawn. The report recommended changes in the arrangements made at hospital level for product withdrawals.

I was extremely concerned when I learned that the product withdrawal had been incomplete. Given that I had arranged for every hospital and maternity unit to be informed by telephone, followed up with individual written notification, extensive contact with the medical profession and huge national publicity, I believe that I did everything that was humanly possible as Minister to ensure the immediate withdrawal of the product. Thankfully, none of the women who received this anti D have tested positive.

Medical people often speak of a mythical instrument which always gives the correct diagnosis and can foresee every problem before it happens. They call it the retrospectoscope. Vincent Browne might be better employed asking how and why so many women were tragically infected, rather than judging my actions in coping with the crisis through his own personal and political retrospectoscope.