Woman with PTSD as a result of father’s death entitled to damages

A woman who suffered a psychiatric illness as a result of her father dying from an Aids-related infection 30 years ago should be compensated by a tribunal, a High Court judge has ruled.

The landmark ruling by Mr Justice Bernard Barton has opened the door to similar claims relating to the Hepatitis C and HIV Compensation Tribunal, which was set up in 1995 to provide compensation after people became ill as a result of the use of infected blood products in the State.

Mr Justice Barton said the woman suffered “nervous shock” or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) due to her father’s death after he was infected with contaminated blood. The judge set aside the tribunal’s 2015 determination that the woman was not entitled to compensation. He has returned her application for assessment and an award of compensation.

Mr Justice Barton heard that the woman’s father, who was a haemophiliac, was one of the first people in Ireland to die after contracting HIV/Aids.

The tribunal, while making an award to the woman for the loss of society and opportunity, dismissed her claim for PTSD.

The woman, represented by Gerry Danaher SC, appealed the tribunal’s decision to the High Court. The State opposed the appeal.

Horrifying

The judge said the tribunal’s rationale for the dismissal was based on grounds that, while the experience of her father’s illness had been distressing and traumatic, there did not appear to have been one particularly horrifying or traumatic event, or series of events, which had caused her illness.

He said that the tribunal’s conclusion was difficult to reconcile with findings it made in respect of a claim by the woman’s mother, who also suffered PTSD after her husband’s death and was awarded compensation.

Mr Justcie Barton accepted medical evidence that the events leading up to the woman’s father’s death caused a recognised psychiatric illness which emerged after she was admitted to hospital with depression.

The woman, as a teenager, overheard her mother and a doctor talk about Aids, which she knew was bad news. Freddie Mercury had said he was dying of Aids and she knew actor Rock Hudson had also died of the illness.

“The appellant literally watched her father waste away. Her mother allowed short visits to his bedroom and at night, she could hear him crying,” Mr Justice Barton said.

The judge said the circumstances of the death were “horrific” and “harrowing”.

“There was at the time of his death in the 1980s, a stigma attached that was not just social but also medical,” he said. “The policy of patient isolation, the face masks, the hand washing and the way the corpse was dealt with were examples of that.”

Sealed coffin

Mr Justice Barton said the mother had told others that her husband died of cancer and following his death he was zipped into a body bag and placed in a sealed coffin rather than laid out.

The woman knew the cause of death but did not discuss it with anyone for many years. She never told her mother, who was determined to keep the cause of death hidden from everybody, that she knew the truth.

The judge said he found the woman to be a truthful witness and accepted her account of the loneliness, recurring nightmares and devastating emptiness she suffered as a result.

In setting aside the tribunal’s dismissal of her claim and readmitting it for fresh consideration, Mr Justice Barton adjourned the proceedings to a date in October for final orders.