The confidential patient records of a number of haemophiliacs were obtained from a hospital and examined by the Blood Transfusion Service Board without getting the consent of the persons they referred to, it was alleged at the tribunal yesterday.
Counsel for the Irish Haemophilia Society (IHS), Mr John Trainor SC, said that if the BTSB needed to consult the records to prepare for the tribunal, the least it might have done was seek the consent of the patients involved "rather than going behind their backs".
The deputy medical officer of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (formerly the BTSB), Dr Emer Lawlor, said she had examined the records of patients at a Drogheda hospital before compiling a table which detailed when seven haemophilia B patients who contracted HIV received BTSB Factor 9 blood-clotting agent. Three of the seven, five of whom have died, had been patients of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda.
Asked by counsel where she obtained information for the table, Dr Lawlor said that as part of her look-back hospital records were made available to her.
Mr Trainor said it was his understanding that no consent had been given to consult the confidential patient records of any person with haemophilia.
The tribunal chairwoman, Judge Alison Lindsay, said that Dr Lawlor had looked at documents to assist the tribunal and she wondered what point Mr Trainor was trying to make.
Mr Trainor said Dr Lawlor "had taken refuge in the past" and not answered questions on the basis that she had not seen and could not see patients' records without consent.
Judge Lindsay said that referred to a totally different matter, to a patient who got Factor 8 clotting agent.
Counsel for the tribunal, Mr John Finlay, said he presumed Mr Trainor was saying it was inappropriate for the BTSB to investigate the possibility that some of its product might have infected a number of persons and that it was inappropriate to carry out an investigation to see if this was the case with a view to assisting the tribunal.
"The issue at stake here is the absolute confidentiality which persons with haemophilia attach to their conditions and to people having access to their records," Mr Trainor said.
Judge Lindsay interjected again, saying this was "a red herring".
"What the BTSB through Dr Lawlor has done is investigate a very unfortunate incident. If as Dr Lawlor has said the only way she could do so was by looking at the records in Drogheda then I think it's preferable that the information she got in that is here rather than none," she said.