Patients told of HIV test results on stairs landing

Patients at the State's main treatment centre for haemophiliacs were informed of test results for HIV on a public stairwell landing normally used for cigarette smoking, the Lindsay tribunal heard yesterday.

Prof Ian Temperley, medical director of the National Haemophilia Treatment Centre, said the situation was very unsatisfactory and stemmed from the totally inadequate facilities at St James's Hospital, where the centre was.

Apart from the hospital's general outpatient section, he said, only one small room was available for the treatment of haemophiliacs. There was no consultant's room, nurse's room or waiting room, only a few chairs at the end of a corridor.

As a result, when HIV test results were communicated to haemophiliacs in 1985, only two locations were available for inpatients. "There was this end of corridor place" which would have been cleared of people before a result was given, or else an upstairs landing.

He stressed, however, that most people were informed of test results in the outpatients section.

Prof Temperley said more space did not become available until around 1989 when a relatively large room with two cubicles was made available on a lower floor. Again, nurses and consultants had to cope with using a single room for treatment, and patients still had to queue outside.

He noted there were only two staff members at the hospital dedicated to dealing with haemophiliacs, a ward sister and a secretary. He had to combine his work there with other duties.

The tribunal heard that numerous applications were made for additional social workers for the centre. "It was a constant battle . . . We must have gone, I think, every year with plans and recommendation and the like," Prof Temperley said.

He stressed that every effort was made to maintain patient confidentiality. HIV reports were kept in his office and not displayed in the wards, a situation which created its own difficulties, said Prof Temperley, as everyone had to be presumed HIV-positive unless it was confirmed otherwise.