This is a letter from Gill Fyffe, Hep C survivor. Gill’s book LifeBlood was published yesterday by Freight Books. Penrose is the only public inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal in the UK and was instigated by Nicola Sturgeon.
DEAR Ms Sturgeon,
I write to you not for your politics but to thank you for your courage because once long ago, as Cabinet Secretary for Health, you ordered Lord Penrose to conduct a Public Inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal.
Lord Winston called it the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS, and of course it is not only a Scottish scandal. But for the last twenty six years, since I was given my infected transfusion, the Government in Westminster has refused to hold a Public Inquiry. Unlike you, they were not prepared that political ambition should overlap with truth and responsibility, with public accountability, with letting the electorate listen to the facts.
And as a consequence, for the last quarter of a century, two different questions have been muddled up. The first question is ‘was somebody negligent?’ And the second question is ‘should those infected be offered compensation?’
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Picture courtesy of ! Sterno