Sister tells of prejudice faced by her family

The sister of two haemophiliacs who were infected with HIV and hepatitis C respectively spoke yesterday about the prejudice and discrimination her family encountered amid the "hysteria" over AIDS.

Using the pseudonym Frances, she told the tribunal that when her elder brother died of the condition in the mid1980s, hospital staff wished to seal him in a body-bag.

They were prevented from doing so, she said, only after money changed hands.

Of her younger brother, Cathal, she said, he did not complete his primary education as the school principal told him he was not welcome.

She said when Cathal was diagnosed with hepatitis C, aged just 13, he was devastated. He grew depressed and contemplated suicide.

Frances read into the record a note which was found in Cathal's bedroom on the day he died of a drugs overdose, which she said may or may not have been suicide.

"Who wants damaged goods?" the note read. "Who will want to see me going to my death in agony? Why should anybody have to? I am only a mere statistic."

Earlier, a woman who contracted hepatitis C through infected blood products told the tribunal how BTSB doctors questioned her about her sexual history after she tested positive for the virus.

Using the pseudonym Sharon, the woman said she was made to "feel dirty" by two junior doctors who questioned her at the BTSB centre in Cork, to which she had been referred by her GP in January 1996.

The doctors followed a "set questionnaire", she said, the emphasis of which was on her and her husband's sexual histories. The thrust was to ascertain whether she might have been infected through a source other than blood products. "It was totally inappropriate."

She said the only counselling or support she received was from the Irish Haemophilia Society. And having received nothing from any State agency, she was "horrified" to get a copy of the Finlay tribunal report in the post a few years ago with a letter from the then minister for health, Mr Michael Noonan.

"It was totally unsolicited," she said, and raised concerns for her about confidentiality, particularly as the letter had been opened by accident by her daughter.