Vaccine Damage Payments Act Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Pat McFadden
Main Page: Pat McFadden (Labour - Wolverhampton South East)Department Debates - View all Pat McFadden's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
I will not detain the House for long. I want briefly to raise the case of my constituent Stacey Jones, who suffered life-altering changes to her health following the administration of the HPV vaccine six or seven years ago. For Stacey it has meant seizures and mood swings—severe continuing problems that require treatment to this day. I pay tribute to her brave mother, Julie Jones, who has fought to have her daughter’s condition recognised. She brought it to my attention and that of Ministers and the local medical profession, and she has tried to put the plight of young women such as Stacey on the agenda.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) for his work in obtaining the debate, and more broadly on the issue. Although the subject is compensation, I want to put a broader question to the Minister. Does she agree that it cannot be right for young women and their families, such as Stacey and her mother, to be regarded simply as collateral damage for the vaccine programme? That is how the families feel. In a sense, that is a question for my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) as well as for the Minister, because there is an election coming and I am not sure whether the Minister or my hon. Friend will occupy the Government Front Bench in a couple of months. I hope that they both agree that it cannot be right for young women such as Stacey to be regarded as collateral damage of a vaccine programme. If so, how do we change the view of such families, who feel that the Department of Health simply brushes aside their concerns, does not acknowledge them and does not take them seriously?
The health problems that those young women are suffering from are real, but they feel that they are being ignored. I ask the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree, to address in their summing-up speeches the question of not just compensation, but the attitude shown to such families, who feel that they are being ignored, so that their plight is taken more seriously whether or not they are entitled to compensation under the law.