Family of killer blood scandal brothers protest over forgotten deaths
From left: Vincent Farrugia, Angela Farrugia, Madeleine Farrugia and Tony Farruigia who lost relatives to contaminated blood supplied by the NHS - Credit: Archant
Relatives of people affected by one of the biggest treatment disasters in the history of the NHS were among those protesting outside Parliament today.
From left: Vincent Farrugia, Angela Farrugia, Madeleine Farrugia and Tony Farruigia who lost relatives to contaminated blood supplied by the NHS - Credit: Archant
Victims of the contaminated blood scandal took their campaign to Westminster to call on the government to halt a widely panned consultation into systems of support for those affected.
Tony Farrugia – whose dad Barry and two uncles, David and Victor, of Brooks Avenue in East Ham – died after being infected with contaminated blood, called for better support for families.
From left: Vincent Farrugia, Angela Farrugia, Madeleine Farrugia and Tony Farruigia who lost relatives to contaminated blood supplied by the NHS - Credit: Archant
“I want to see widows and dependent children included in any settlement the government comes up with,” said the 44-year-old.
“At the moment they’re saying a widow will get three times the payment her husband received when he died.
Barry Farrugia died after contracting HIV from contaminated NHS blood products, pictured here with one of his sons - Credit: Archant
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“My dad died before the scheme was set up so he got nothing. You can’t give someone three times nothing.”
The scandal saw some 6,000 people, many with the haemophilia, infected with HIV and hepatitis C by contaminated blood used by the NHS up until 1991.
Victor Farrugia, of Brooks Avenue, East Ham, died from HIV after his blood was contaminated by NHS supplies - Credit: Nigel Sutton
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Despite three decades of campaigning and more than 2,000 deaths there has been no public enquiry into how the disaster happened and no proper system of compensation for the victims.
Madeleine Farrugia, whose husband David died four years ago, called on the government to admit what happened.
“When I think of all the pain and suffering my husband went through and how he died in my arms, I don’t know what he would feel if he was here today,” said the 72-year-old.
“Why can’t they admit what they’ve done and put closure on it?”
MPs were due to move a motion asking the government to recognise the contaminated blood scandal as one of the biggest treatment disasters in NHS history.
It will call for the government to recognise that proposed reforms will leave some worse off and ignore key groups affected by the scandal, such as widows and children of the dead.
