A woman left widowed by the contaminated blood scandal has said that another such tragedy could happen again.
Ruth Spellman, whose husband Bill was infected in 1989, also said victims and their families were owed compensation from the taxpayers, saying 'not to pay compensation, means you don't care.'
Speaking on GB News Ruth Spellman said: “I think in the light of the inquiry, there is clear evidence that ministers in particular knew of the risks that they were asking the British public to take, and were less than honest in the way they translated knowledge about how to deal with the issues once they arose and didn't do what they should have done in the first instance, which was ensure that we were self-sufficient in blood in this country.
“The reason we were importing blood from the American prison system was because it wasn't available in the UK, and David Owen in particular, was the minister who owned up to that and set an objective that we should be self sufficient.
“So I believe my husband and many other people would not have been killed if we had pursued that objective, and if we’d been consistent and if we’d carried out our policy intention properly.
“And I must admit that if I look now at inquiry and what it stood for at the time, or what it stands for now, it's sadness and regret that these things have happened.
“But it's also feeling that a lot of people would like to see proper justice done, those people who got it wrong to be told in no equivocal terms that they did get it wrong, and the systems and process, which Sir Brian has now recommended in his report, which is a voluminous report, which has many detailed recommendations, that all those recommendations are implemented and as soon as possible.
“My husband died in 2009 but he got infected in 1989 so I've been waiting 35 years for justice for my Bill, and that's the truth. My children will never know him properly and he will never see his grandchildren. That's the reality of what has happened to so many families. And I've talked to many of the other victims too, who would share their stories with me.
“This was a terrible, terrible tragedy and completely avoidable. And I think Sir Brian has said that quite unequivocally.
“I don't [believe this could not happen again] because the recommendations that Sir Brian has made, I don't know when they're going to be implemented and a lot of people feel the same way.
“The first thing that Sir Brian said was patient safety should have been a paramount concern of all politicians and medics involved in the treatment, and it wasn't.
“It was their political reputations, it was their personal, professional reputations, and it was the potential for legal or financial claims against them that was dominating.
“And it's clear from many of the statements given to the inquiry from the evidence that's been collected that those factors took over from their primary duty, which is to protect patients. And we need to know in this country that the NHS and the people who run it are going to protect us.
“I think unfortunately [compensation] does fall to the taxpayer. But then we all pay our taxes for the NHS, don't we? We need to know it works, and what happens if it doesn't work?
“What happened if we cut corners because it was more expensive to test that blood in the time that those decisions were taken, it was made on economic grounds.
“I think we've got to remove economics from this and actually look at what happened, what those people have gone through, how much suffering they've endured, and not to pay compensation, means you don't care. It means, after all of that, we haven't learned a single lesson. So I think it's fundamental.
“But there are two other major conclusions that came out of the inquiry today. If we had screened the bad blood properly then, and if we are not screening blood properly now, that's in the lesson which we should be learning. Viral infections can be transmitted very easily through blood, so that commitment to having safe blood supplies in this country needs to be sacrosanct now, and is just as relevant today as it was when this happened.
“The other point that I'd like to draw out is that our public servants need to be open and open and transparent, especially when it comes to people's health. And if you look at the NHS, they are public service, just as civil servants are just as ministers are. They are paid by us through taxpayers’ money and they owe us openness and transparency. And that was conspicuous by its absence.”
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