A former chief medical consultant of the Blood Transfusion Service Board expressed profound regret at the tribunal yesterday that people with haemophilia had been infected with HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated blood products.
Dr Terry Walsh, on his first day in the witness box, said it was a matter of regret and sorrow for him that people became infected. "It was not only devastating for them but also very upsetting for people like me that this should have happened," he said.
A total of 105 people with haemophilia became infected with HIV and 191 with hepatitis C as a result of receiving blood products in the State; 74 of them have died. A number of those infected were in the tribunal's public gallery when Dr Walsh made his apology.
The doctor, who joined the BTSB as its senior medical officer in 1969 and became chief medical consultant in 1988, said he had no function in relation to the selection of blood products for haemophiliacs up to 1985-86, by which time most of those who contracted HIV were already infected.
The board of the BTSB was responsible for decision-making, and up to the end of 1985 the national director, the late Dr Jack O'Riordan, advised it on medical matters, he said.
He described Dr O'Riordan as a boss in every sense of the word. "It was his ship and he was the captain and all officers reported to the captain and did what he told them to do," he said.
A vacuum was created in the BTSB on Dr O'Riordan's retirement which was followed within three months by the retirement of the second most senior medical person in Pelican House, Dr James Wilkinson.
At this stage Dr Walsh said his workload increased considerably, and cutbacks led to a situation where at one point he was the only medical consultant in the transfusion service. "I coped as well as I could," he said.
Dr Walsh, who retired in 1995, criticised the BTSB for not having a research and development budget in the 1980s. All research had to be done on top of the staff's daily workload, he said.
He agreed with counsel for the tribunal, Mr Gerard Durcan SC, that this was why it took the board so long to realise it would not be possible for it to produce Factor 8 concentrates on a large scale.
Sufficient product was produced under the direction of Mr Sean Hanratty, the chief technical officer, to treat up to 15 patients, but it did not become clear that production could not be started on a large scale until the end of 1984.