‘Too many women have died’ – the forgotten health scandal thirty years on

This month marks thirty years from the shocking revelations that a blood product contaminated with Hepatitis C was given to mothers in maternity hospitals. There are just around 500 survivors alive from the 1,200 women originally affected. While not all died of the potentially lethal virus it led to premature deaths as women developed life-threatening illness such as liver failure.

Two groups of women - one in the late 1970s and the other in the early 1990s - received batches of tainted Anti-D product made by the former Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB) which was injected in those with rhesus negative blood to protect babies from potentially serious complications.

Helen Martin and Josephine Mahony who are among the survivors said yesterday:”Most of the surviving women have now been living with the effects of the virus for almost 50 years. “February 22, 1994,the day of the announcement by the BTSB, remains a heart-rending turning point for these women – a day that brought much fear, but also a possible answer to their, until then, unexplained health issues. “ The majority had received the contaminated product between 1977 and 1978 and the impact on their livers, and overall health, began soon after. “ Hepatitis C had been silently damaging them but until news broke that day, they didn’t know why they were sick. Women spent years being dismissed - told their symptoms were simply the result of being mothers and that that they were exhausted from the strains of raising their families.”Ms Martin is the chair of the support group Anti-D Women and Josephine Mahony its Director.