A doctor who treated haemophiliacs in the State in the 1980s said yesterday he did not think it serious that it took two years to tell a patient he was HIV positive.
Dr Fred Jackson was commenting on the case of a young man from the west of Ireland with the pseudonym Angus who was tested for the virus in 1985 but not told he was HIV positive until 1987.
Prof Ian Temperley, former director of the National Haemophilia Treatment Centre, told the tribunal last week he met Angus twice in 1986 but decided to postpone giving him the results of his HIV test because he felt he would not have coped.
Dr Jackson, now a consultant haematologist with the South Eastern Health Board, provided locum cover for Prof Temperley in October 1985. Then he went abroad and returned to the National Haemophilia Treatment Centre at St James's Hospital in 1987, when he then told Angus he was HIV positive.
Counsel for the Irish Haemophilia Society, Mr Martin Giblin SC, asked Dr Jackson if it struck him as serious that Angus was not told for two years.
Dr Jackson said he could not say it struck him as a serious situation. He said patients like Angus received blood products that were already known to carry a risk of hepatitis B and other infectious agents.
Dr Jackson was also asked about the evidence given by a woman with the pseudonym Deirdre whose husband died of AIDS. She complained that she had difficulty getting his death certificate changed so that it did not refer to AIDS.
Dr Jackson said he had written to the Department of Health and suggested two death certificates be issued. He said there was still a case to be made for issuing two death certificates, one in confidence to the family and another for general purposes such as organising a funeral.