A pharmaceutical company supplying the Blood Transfusion Service Board had a commercial interest in seeking the support of the board for the introduction of common standards for medical devices, including one of its own products, the tribunal heard yesterday.
New documents opened to the tribunal showed that Travenol's managing director was corresponding with the BTSB's director, the late Dr Jack O'Riordan, in the early 1980s and expressing concern that there were no standards to which blood sets circulating in the State should adhere.
Mr John Trainor SC, counsel for the Irish Haemophilia Society (IHS), said that in a letter to Dr O'Riordan in November 1982, Mr A.W. Barrell of Travenol said there appeared to be a number of blood sets being supplied in the State in competition with the Travenol set.
Dr Emer Lawlor, deputy medical director of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (formerly the BTSB), said she was sure Travenol had commercial considerations in mind. There were standards in the UK, where Mr Barrell was chairman of a standards body, but there were none here. "There really would need to be," she said.
Mr Trainor put it to her that if standards were introduced it might not be possible for rivals to sell cheaper sets which might not meet the required standards. Dr Lawlor agreed.
It emerged that the BTSB wrote to the Department of Health in March 1983 supporting the proposition that there should be appropriate standards.
The new documents were opened by counsel for the BTSB, Mr Frank Clarke SC, to clarify a point raised earlier. Questions had been asked about what Dr O'Riordan might have discussed at a "quiet meeting" referred to in a letter between him and Mr Barrell in January 1983. Counsel for the IHS had suggested this showed a close relationship between Dr O'Riordan and Travenol.
Mr Trainor suggested to Dr Lawlor yesterday that, contrary to what was suggested in the letter, it was Travenol which took the lead.
Dr Lawlor replied that standards would also have been something Dr O'Riordan would have been interested in, and when it was brought to his attention that there could be a problem with them he wrote to the Department.
Mr Trainor asked if suppliers of other products would have canvassed the support of the board.
Dr Lawlor said she had not seen any other correspondence of this particular type but Baxter/Travenol was a big company and its blood sets had been used in many transfusions.