The coffins of people who die of AIDS and hepatitis C still have to remain closed for their funerals in hospital mortuaries, the Lindsay tribunal heard yesterday.
A senior social worker at St James's Hospital, Dublin, where most haemophiliacs infected with HIV are treated, said the policy should be changed.
Ms Maeve Foreman said there were still no guidelines on what should happen in such cases. The matter had been brought to the attention of the National AIDS Strategy group but it referred to the issue in its report in an "ambiguous" way, she said.
She added that the practice was being reviewed at St James's Hospital and staff tried to "work around it". If somebody died on a ward, they were left on the ward for as long as possible to let families come and see them. Staff also tried to arrange private openings of the coffin in the hospital mortuary if somebody arrived from overseas and hadn't seen the body.
She added that there were also some undertakers who allowed open coffins in their mortuaries.
"Ideally we would discuss it with a family member before the person dies. It can cause upset if somebody dies suddenly," she said.
Ms Foreman was questioned by the solicitor for the Irish Haemophilia Society, Mr Raymond Bradley, about the social work services available for haemophiliacs and their families outside office hours in the late 1980s. She said there was still no "out of hours" social work service at St James's Hospital.
She admitted that some patients, as a result of not getting counselling - a service which was under-resourced - ended up having to get psychiatric assistance.
Ms Eadaoin O'Shea, a nursing sister attached to the National Haemophilia Treatment Centre (NHTC) at St James's since October, 1988, said 1989 to 1993 were the peak years of HIV positive haemophiliacs becoming ill and the workload for one sister became "overwhelming". Feelings of anger among patients that they had been infected by contaminated blood products turned to fear, she said.
She added that the facilities at the NHTC were "stark" compared to the Royal Free Hospital, London, where she received training in working with haemophiliacs. The London hospital had four sisters for 519 haemophiliacs, while in Dublin she was the only sister for 352 patients.