The Department of Health has confirmed that two former Ministers Rory O'Hanlon of Fianna Fail and Labour's Barry Desmond have been called to the Lindsay Tribunal, which is inquiring into the infection of haemophiliacs from blood products. Dr Helena Daly, who had clinical responsibility for haemophiliacs for three months in 1985, has told the tribunal that she was told by the head of the blood bank not to order a commercial product which she believed to be safer than the Irish alternative.
Dr Daly said the direction was made by the BTSB National Director Dr Jack O'Riordan during a heated meeting. Dr Daly held clinical responsibility for people with haemophilia during July, August and September of 1985 when she was standing in for Professor Ian Temperley who had taken sabbatical.
The Tribunal has already heard how she held a meeting with the BTSB chief, Dr Jack O'Riordan in August 1985 about a clotting agent called Factor 9 used by a minority of haemophiliacs. The crux of the meeting at Pelican House centred on Dr Daly's request that the BTSB stop issuing its Factor 9 as, unlike commercial products, it hadn't been heat-treated.
Dr Daly's strong belief was that heat treatment eliminated HIV, although she accepted that she did not have cast-iron proof that this was the case. Dr O'Riordan refused her request which he contended was "outrageous". He became angry, the meeting broke up and, in the words of Dr Daly, she was "dismissed".
Frank Clarke, Senior Counsel for the Blood Transfusion Service, pointed to documentation which showed that enough stocks of commercial product were at Pelican House.
He suggested, however, that the blood bank never received an order or request from Saint James's Hospital, subsequent to the meeting with Dr O'Riordan for this commercial product. Dr Daly disputed this. She said that she had specifically requested commercial heat treated product at her meeting with Dr O'Riordan but this was refused.
She also said that Dr O'Riordan said she didn't have the authority to change the ordering policy for blood products for Saint James's Hospital. Dr Daly also told the tribunal that she was "puzzled" by the revelation that Pelican House had stocks of commercial heat treated product. The reason was that after meeting Dr O'Riordan, she was what she termed "unloaded" with a huge amount of unheat treated Irish Factor 9.
It is now known that seven people contracted HIV from BTSB made Factor 9 - five of whom have died.
