Concern was expressed within the Department of Health in 1985 at the slow progress being made by the Blood Transfusion Service Board in introducing a test for HIV, the tribunal was told yesterday.
Dr James Walsh, a former deputy chief medical officer with the Department, said he was very anxious that the test should be introduced and grew "more and more worried" that it had not. He said he voiced this concern to his seniors in September 1989. Letters were subsequently written by the Department secretary to the blood bank.
Dr Walsh said he did not know whether this external pressure hastened the process. However, the board did introduce HIV testing of donors the following month.
Dr Walsh acknowledged that consultants within the board had "worries" that the Pelican House test would be introduced before alternative testing sites for HIV were established elsewhere. The board was concerned that people from high-risk categories would donate blood as a way of being tested.
However, Dr Walsh said, it was never put to him that the absence of alternative sites was holding up the BTSB test. He said adequate alternative testing sites had been set up in hospitals throughout the State by June 1985. Testing had begun on a diagnostic basis as early as January 1985. However, he said, research was still ongoing into the test at the time and he was not fully satisfied with its validity until May 1985.
Counsel for the BTSB, Mr Michael McGrath SC, pointed out that in a radio interview in August 1985 Dr Walsh said public screening centres were "coming up, hopefully shortly". Dr Walsh rejected the claim that this indicated alternative testing sites were not available. He said he was referring instead to "a centre of expertise" which he had hoped would be established at St James's Hospital, Dublin, under the direction of a specialist AIDS consultant. Such a consultant was not appointed to the hospital until 1987.
