Hospital records of hepatitis patients "lost or destroyed", an investigation was opened

The "lost or destroyed" hospital records of a patient suspected of having been infected with hepatitis C during an operation prevented him from receiving compensation, announced a investigation.

A groin injury, sustained while he was working as a logger in southwestern Scotland, required surgery during which the patient, known as M. X, said that he had received a blood transfusion.

Expressing under the guise of anonymity, the patient told the Investigation on Infected Blood that nurses had joked after his operation in 1976 that he would speak with an American accent because the blood used for his transfusion came from America.

After being diagnosed with hepatitis C – which he said he could only come from this operation – he tried to get his medical record from the Royal Infirmary of Dumfries and Galloway who, according to him, could not find his coordinates.

Despite the support of a general practitioner who confirmed Dr. X's claim that the infection was due to a contaminated blood transfusion, his repeated attempts to obtain compensation from the Skipton Fund were rejected.

The fund, created as a result of the tainted blood scandal, is supposed to provide non-discretionary and ex gratia payments to people infected with NHS blood for hepatitis.

Mr. X said that "the absence of medical records, where they are lost or destroyed", as well as the confirmation signed by a doctor that the infection was probably caused by medical procedures should automatically trigger the payment .

However, in practice, Mr. X said, "It appeared that the Skipton Fund was a very discretionary fund; it failed in its protocols, procedures and configuration processes and failed miserably to become a non-discretionary fund. . "

He also stated that he found "flagrant" inaccuracies in his GP record that left him "completely puzzled", such as getting the number of children he was wrong, claiming that his owner was his partner and indicate that he was drugged intravenously. He said that these statements are false and that he had to fight for it to be corrected.

"I embarked on a personal crusade to rectify what I felt was wrong," he said, adding, "It was a dog lunch in terms of factual accuracy."

After three episodes of treatment – one of which, described by Mr. X, "as if he was napping from the inside" – he was cured of the virus, even though he was suffering from many problems of including cirrhosis of the liver, heart problems and enlarged spleen.

In conclusion of his testimony, Mr. X called for treatment to "break the cycle" of hepatitis infection and said, "We must consider a strategy of serious elimination of the disease. Hepatitis C.

"It's within our reach to do it. The Scottish Government committed itself in 2015 to an elimination strategy, which seems to have gone astray. "

He added, "We have the expertise, we have the knowledge and we have the cure to actually eliminate hepatitis C from our midst."

Suggesting treating him in the same "collective, immediate and sustained" way as foot-and-mouth disease, he joked, "I'm not saying that we are all put on a great funeral pyre and burned, but we have the ability to do it." Eliminate hepatitis C from our society. "

The survey also heard the widow of a man who said that his diagnosis of hepatitis C and two treatment failures had made him sink into alcoholism and that he was sick. he died at age 45.

She described having met "the love of my life" at the age of 14, getting married at 17 and having two children together.

Her late husband had mild hemophilia – a condition that prevented a person from forming blood clots – and therefore required transfusion treatment on an occasional basis.

She said that in 1995, the couple had been introduced to a store "the size of a tuppence" as a result of what they thought was a routine blood test, to get themselves to say that he had hepatitis C.

It later became apparent that his hospital records at the Yorkhill site in Glasgow had also been lost or destroyed.

In tears, Ms. Y also explained to the Inquiry Committee that her husband "had become a different man" after his second treatment attempt to cure the virus, and told his family that he did not want to more clutter. He left the family home – that they lost because of debt – and became an alcoholic. She said that it had led to death at the age of 45 years.

Following the evidence, Sir Brian Langstaff, Chair of the Inquiry Commission, stated that she had given "a compelling account of the destructive effects" of hepatitis C and its treatment, on the physical, social and financial plans, on his family.