A young man became HIV-positive after receiving a blood-clotting agent manufactured in Ireland, the haemophilia tribunal was told yesterday. He received the treatment during what turned out to be an unnecessary operation.
He was given the contaminated product after he was brought to St James's Hospital, Dublin, with severe stomach pains in 1985.
He was operated on almost immediately but when the surgeon came around the next morning, he told him his appendix was perfect and he had been suffering from gastroenteritis.
The 35-year-old haemophiliac was the first witness to tell the tribunal, which is investigating how 260 haemophiliacs contracted HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated blood products, that he had contracted HIV from a home-produced product.
Other witnesses said they were diagnosed HIV-positive after getting the Factor 8 blood-clotting agent which was imported from the US.
The man was given cryo-precipitate, a clotting agent made in Ireland, in the summer of 1985, but it was not until October 1985 that the Blood Transfusion Service Board began screening blood products for HIV.
In a further twist, he told the tribunal he was diagnosed HIVpositive in 1987, but medical records he had seen showed he was HIV-positive in January 1986.
Using the pseudonym Vincent to protect his identity, he said he did not receive any counselling after the diagnosis.
If he had, he would never have told his mother, who died a young woman.
"It broke her heart," he said, before breaking down. "My mother gave me this disease. It's not her fault, but if I come home and tell her I have another disease I'm going to die from, how would she feel?" He also regretted telling his father. He was an only son and his father was refusing to hand over his business to him in case he died before him.
Vincent is now on triple treatment therapy which has been very effective.
"My viral load is down to zero, so myself and my wife thought about having a child, but it now appears my sperm count is zero, too, as a side-effect of the treatment," he said.
The prospect of not being able to have children upset him. He was the last surviving man in his family to hand on the family name.
He lived in a small rural town and would be ostracised if people found out he was HIV-positive.
"If it got out it would ruin me," he said.
He had been in a five-year relationship which "fizzled out" after he was diagnosed HIV-positive. However, he had since met and married another woman.
Vincent was also diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1991.
He said the public only got a snapshot of what hospitals were like but he, as somebody who attended regularly, saw mistakes being made.
One day his chart was lost and his 9 a.m. appointment had to be put back to 4 p.m.
"If these small things go missing, what else goes missing?" he asked.
He said the healthcare system was under too much pressure and there were not enough doctors in the hospitals. Patients never saw consultants.
They saw junior doctors but he felt junior doctors should not be allowed to work without observation to make sure they were doing everything right.
"I'm not pointing the finger but somebody made a mistake. If I make a mistake I answer to it. I think whoever made the mistake should answer to it," he said.
He said haemophiliacs infected with HIV were under pressure to accept compensation from the State in the early 1990s because people were dying.
They could not come out publicly to say how they felt. He received £77,000 compensation, which he felt was very inadequate.
"We hid behind the wall too long. We should not be hiding. We did nothing wrong," he said.