Prof Ian Temperley yesterday rejected a claim that responsibility for recalling unsafe blood products from patients rested with medical staff such as himself.
He was giving evidence on the case of a young haemophiliac who continued to use HIV-infected non-heat-treated Factor 9 for four months after Prof Temperley instructed that the product be withdrawn.
Prof Temperley said he had made it "abundantly clear" that from November 1985 only heat treated Factor 9 should be used, and he would have thought it was "implicit" that the blood transfusion unit at St James's Hospital, where the patient was, would have recalled all untreated product.
As a consultant with various duties, he said, "you can only cover so much". It was implicit that others in senior positions should have followed this up.
The patient in question, given the pseudonym Mark, was infected with HIV through a contaminated batch of BTSB Factor 9 between December 7th, 1985, and February 20th, 1986.
Counsel for the tribunal, Mr John Finlay SC, suggested to Prof Temperley that the "natural and proper" origin for such a recall would have been from the medical doctors. But Prof Temperley said: "I would not have thought so."
Mark was one of seven haemophilia B, or Christmas disease, patients who contracted HIV through untreated BTSB Factor 9.
The first positive test was registered in Cork as early as October 1985. Mr Finlay pointed out that had this been communicated immediately a recall could have taken place which could have prevented Mark from becoming infected.
Prof Temperley said, however, that he did not learn of the Cork infection until around April 1986.
He said he believed the first positive test which came to his attention was in Drogheda in January 1986. It took him some time to assimilate this information and to contact his medical counterpart in Cork to establish the situation there. "Maybe you can criticise me for not doing this quickly enough, but it was done," he said.
