Facilities for providing dental treatment for haemophiliacs at St James's Hospital, Dublin, in the late 1980s were so inadequate that they were probably "unsafe", the tribunal heard. The admission was made on the first day of his testimony by the hospital's former chief executive officer, Mr Liam Dunbar.
Mr Dunbar wrote to the Department of Health seeking funding of more than £82,000 to upgrade dental treatment facilities at the National Haemophilia Treatment Centre, based in St James's, in October 1986.
He also wrote to the Department in early 1987 seeking money to order extra equipment to prevent cross-infection of patients infected with HIV and to allow proper sterilisation procedures to take place between the treatment of patients. He did not receive a reply. No progress was made on improving dental services in 1987 or 1988 and he wrote to the Department again in December 1988. The letter was acknowledged by the Department in January 1989, but it was not until 1991 that funding of £43,500 was provided.
Before this, however, a letter from Dr B. Harrington - a dentist treating patients - to Mr Dunbar in late 1989 noted that the equipment in the unit was totally unsatisfactory. Asked by counsel for the tribunal, Mr John Finlay SC, about the correspondence, Mr Dunbar said: "He [Dr Harrington] was quite rightly saying we are treading on dangerous ground here."
Mr Dunbar said he wrote to the Department conveying Dr Harrington's alarm but got no response. In a further letter in January 1991 he said the dental service had "now collapsed".
