Contaminated Blood and Blood Products

Debate between Matt Hancock and Gareth Johnson

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), I do not profess to have any high degree of expertise. I was approached by a couple of my constituents, who hit me with what can be described only as a moral sledgehammer. They movingly recounted profound stories of their youth and their lost childhoods, which others have mentioned, and of their inability to form full relationships with loved ones. Some victims have had to keep their condition secret owing to a fear of being shunned by people who have a naive attitude towards HIV. The heartbreaking accounts are seemingly endless. Very often, sufferers get into the habit of not telling friends and even relatives, and now find it impossible to divulge the truth. Many victims were children. Some never made it to adulthood.

We fight and argue in this Chamber over a range of issues, but we would struggle to find a more poignant debate than this. The contracting of HIV through blood transfusions is one of the most profound, disturbing and dreadful episodes in 20th century health treatment. According to my calculations, on average, one person a week has died as a result of being infected with HIV. Those who survive do so only because of a cocktail of drugs that keeps them hanging on to life. That treatment has been described as being on low-dose chemotherapy for the rest of one’s life.

An additional difficulty is that victims must cope with their inability to obtain life insurance—Opposition Members have mentioned that—and they also have difficulty with travel insurance and medicals. I therefore welcome the terms of reference for the review. Surely some help can be offered to the remaining survivors. I use the term “survivor” deliberately, because that is exactly what the remaining sufferers are.

A further tragedy is the fact that some sufferers were not told of their condition even when it was known by others, leading to the infection of partners. On other occasions, it was felt unnecessary to engage with sufferers as they were not expected to live very long anyway. The treatment that is available today for HIV sufferers was not envisaged in the 1980s, so it was believed that victims had a life expectancy of about five years. Thankfully, that has not been the case in many instances. Understandably, some who were told that they had only five years to live went out and spent their financial award pretty quickly, and enjoyed life to the full without considering investing for the future. Many such victims have consequently been left financially short.

We are familiar with the root cause of the infection: blood was imported for transfusion when the UK was not self-sufficient. Perhaps we need to look further into that. Safeguards that should have been implemented in both the UK and the US were not. Indeed, it appears that the UK was slow to act on minimising the chances of haemophiliacs contracting HIV. Clearly, mistakes were made, and they must be recognised.

More important than embarking on a witch hunt is deciding where we go from here. How can we achieve insurance for sufferers and support those who need it most? Infection from tainted blood was indiscriminate. Young and old, haemophiliacs and those who underwent operations were not spared. Nobody was spared.

The situation affects not only male haemophiliacs; some female cases have been reported. It is very much a matter of regret that the issue of adequate compensation was not tackled some time ago. I suspect that the sheer sums of money are part of the reason why the cause was not picked up by the previous Government. I look to this Government to do what they can to make the situation for sufferers and their families easier.

[Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

Like me, my hon. Friend has constituents who are affected by this issue. Does he agree that although it is important to get the numbers and the money right, there is an important principle at stake too? From this debate, it would appear that the House wholeheartedly supports that principle.

[Gareth Johnson]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a good point. A range of principles is at issue and we need to ensure that people who are affected by this tragedy are properly looked after as best the Government can achieve. We live in times of austerity, and there is a limit on what the Government can do, but it is incumbent on them to do all that they reasonably and practically can to help sufferers.