'The doctors never told me I was infected'

Published on Tuesday 6 May 2003 01:00

ANDREW Gunn, 28, was a child when he became infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products while receiving treatment for haemophilia on the NHS.

Mr Gunn is now fighting to find answers as to why the Factor 8 clotting agent he received was never properly screened, why his family was not told until he was 14 that he was HIV positive and why he was only told that he had hepatitis C when he was 19.

Although he was a bright child at school, Mr Gunn dropped out shortly after his O-grades and, in his words, "went off the rails".

Since then, he has, with the support of his family, managed to sort himself out and is focusing on campaigning for the justice that he believes is severely lacking for haemophiliacs infected with contaminated blood on the NHS.

He said: "I was about a year-and-a-half old when the doctors realised that I was a haemophiliac. I was treated at Yorkhill Hospital in Glasgow and was given Factor 8, a clotting agent, that was imported from America and was contaminated.

"It is likely that I became infected when I was about five years old. But I was lucky, as my health was relatively OK, and I grew up as normal child.

"It was not until I was about 14 that I found out I had HIV, but the doctors knew for some time before this. They made everybody who became infected with HIV sign a waiver for compensation if any other viruses were found. If one person did not sign, nobody would receive compensation, so it was emotional blackmail. I then was told when I was 19, in 1994, that I had hepatitis C, but have since found out that I was tested for it in 1985.

"I had my whole life ahead of me when I found out that I had HIV, and it was completely ruined. I was just your average kid, but at the time there were all these adverts about AIDS on the television, which were all doom and gloom, and I just went off the rails. I dropped out of school and completely lost interest in education, because when you think you have just six months left to live, you do not care.

"My dad worked abroad and had to come home and my parents were obviously affected. When I was then told that I had hepatitis C, the doctors also played it down. They told me that people lived with it for years, which, yes, they can do, but it can be a fatal illness and in most cases kills people."

Mr Gunn is now unable to hold down a nine-to-five job because of his health and never knows how he will feel from day to day. He is angry that doctors could have put his family at risk if they knew about his condition some years before telling him.

He said: "The whole thing is a cover-up. People were tested but the thing is they were not told the results for years and this seems to have happened right across the country. And this puts other people at risk, for example sexual partners, or any children that they may have. I spoke to one woman whose husband died ten years ago but she did not find out that he had hepatitis C until earlier this year."

The Scottish Executive has stated it is willing to pay 20,000 to patients who contracted hepatitis C on the NHS, with an additional payment of 25,000 if they have gone on to develop "chronic" conditions, such as cancer of the liver or cirrhosis. However, it is unclear whether the Executive has the power to make such payments or whether the issue is a reserved matter. Even if the payments are a devolved issue, it is feared that Westminster could "claw back" the money by stopping certain social security benefits.

Phyllis Macleod, of Wemyss Bay, contracted hepatitis C while receiving a blood transfusion during a hysterectomy in 1979 at Irvine Central Hospital. But it was not until more than 20 years later she found she had the virus when she saw a consultant at Inverclyde Hospital about broken veins in her neck.

Although she was told she had the virus once results came back from the laboratory, she said she was unaware she was being screened for the virus until she tested positive.

Mrs Macleod said: "At the time I had not heard of hepatitis C and had to go to the public library to find out information about it .

"In 2001, I had an AIDS test, which was negative, prior to taking part in a drugs trial, but although I was told about the test, I was not offered counselling for either this or when I was told I had hepatitis C.

"The doctor had originally suspected I had hepatitis C because I had redness in the palms of my hands and because of the veins in my neck. But I would like to have known that I was being tested so I could have read up about it before the results and prepared myself."

Carol Grayson, 43, the founder of Haemophilia Action UK, worked as a nurse during the 1980s and was involved in counselling for HIV tests. She set up the action group for haemophiliacs, based in Newcastle, after her husband, Peter Longstaff, 45, became infected with hepatitis C and HIV.

She said: "There were guidelines put in place for HIV testing and these should have been followed for testing of hepatitis C. People have the right as to what they want to know or what they do not want to know and the implications for treatment are enormous. There is a whole human rights issue here."