Sir, - Your correspondent, A. Ryan (April 2nd), bemoans the fact that although he has waited a long time for someone to say something good about the Blood Bank, he has waited in vain. Poor Mr Ryan. He should be realistic. It is far too early to expect a panegyric on the Blood Bank in view of the scandal which has rocked this State and created so many victims throughout this country.
Like E. A. Ryan, this writer worked for many years in the Blood Bank and found that the "heroes and heroines" so exalted by him were rather thin on the ground. There were many medical people, though, who seemed to have a divided agenda part of which concerned itself with blood and blood products, the other intruded into the lay affairs of other departments on the plausible grounds that they were "saving lives".
Thus, union officials representing trades were constantly amazed and bemused to meet white coated, important doctors purporting to negotiate on behalf of the "Board" on such diverse matters as plastering, plumbing, transport, motor mechanics and industrial relations. Intransigence was their hallmark, "co operation" their catchery, forgetting of course that co operation is a two way deal.
But their attitude to blood was cavalier. It was handled by almost everybody. Cooled blood became heated on journeys back from far off clinics. Temperatures soared to 70 degrees in mobile units. Samples were often found lying on laboratory floors. A sealed phial from the 1970s is still extant. What became of the corresponding blood donation? What became of all the cooled, heated and recooled blood? Was it dispensed to the public? Is blood still treated in this fashion?
Had the medical people in Pelican House been compelled to give their conscientious, undivided attention to their own specific profession and to nothing else, then the Blood Bank might not now be in the embarrassing state it finds itself in today. - Yours, etc.,
Glasnevin,
Dublin 9.