Just 10 of 4,000 tainted blood victims have had compensation, campaigners say
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Survivors claim to have been ‘disengaged’ by Labour government after ‘token gesture’ meetings. Furious victims of the infected blood scandal have said that just 10 out of 4,000 people have received compensation under a new scheme, despite pledges from the Conservatives and Labour to sort out payments this year.
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Campaigners say they have been “disengaged” by the Labour government and that, by this month, just 17 people out of the thousands eligible had been invited to register for compensation. Five groups representing victims met officials dealing with claims last week, only for the meetings to end with those in attendance feeling they were being treated as a nuisance, rather than victims of a scandal from which they had suffered greatly.
About 3,000 people died as a result of contaminated blood in commercial products designed for haemophiliacs and blood transfusions in the 1970s and 1980s. A damning inquiry report by Brian Langstaff, published last May, found the scandal could have been largely avoided. There have been various previous compensation schemes for victims but Langstaff recommended a more comprehensive scheme should be set up immediately, with bigger payouts.
Andrew Evans, chair of the group Tainted Blood, who was told aged 12 that he had contracted HIV from a contaminated blood product, said: “When the infected blood inquiry published its final report, the entire community breathed a collective sigh of relief. … we dared hope, for just a moment, that our decades of battling was coming to an end, and that compensation would now be swiftly forthcoming.
