‘It is not like a lottery win’ - Black Isle victim of infected blood scandal says compensation does not match decades of suffering
The compensation scheme announced for UK victims in the infected blood scandal is not like a lottery win, says a Black Isle campaigner.
Haemophiliac Bruce Norval (59), who was among more than 30,000 people in the UK infected with HIV and hepatitis C after being given contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s, does not believe the final payments will match the impact he and his family have absorbed for decades - but he says compensation will offer dignity to victims.
Mr Norval, who has spent 33 years fighting for truth and justice, said that candidates standing in the forthcoming General Election will be lobbied on the issue in a bid to ensure an incoming new government does not “get away with stuff” regarding compensation.
“There is no end for us,” reflected Mr Norval who is married with a son and daughter. “There is no end beyond death for those of us caught up in it.
“It is not like a lottery win.”
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So far, the death toll from those given tainted blood products stands at 3000 although that figure continues to rise weekly.
Mr Norval and other campaigners were finally vindicated after a public inquiry concluded the scale of the contaminated blood scandal was “horrifying”, could have been avoided and accused doctors, successive governments and the NHS of repeatedly failing patients and then covering it up.
The government also announced a compensation scheme, indicating a headline figure that some victims could ultimately receive £2.5 million.
But campaigners say details still have to be clarified and will highlight it as an issue in the forthcoming General Election to ensure an informed House of Commons debates the final compensation framework early in the new government.
Even with the large compensation packages, Mr Norval said the money would be taken up with things such as level-access housing for people so that using a wheelchair was not a major problem.
“It certainly doesn’t match the impact it has had on my life and the financial losses my family has had to absorb for decades,” he said.
Mr Norval said there was still much work to be done by campaigners and legal representatives.
In an unequivocal message to whoever the incoming government minister will be after the General Election on July 4, he said: “This is not a time to get off with stuff.
“That is exactly the core of the problem for those of us who suffered from the contaminated blood - the government denial, the government avoidance.”
He also said that when the compensation scheme is introduced, the existing support schemes under which victims have received monthly payments should be retained.
Mr Norval said these payments made daily life bearable and for the first time in his adult life had given him the dignity to be able to take his wife out to lunch on a whim.
He said at the age of 59, he should not have to beg from the government.
“Why the hell should I have to go and beg to the government who poisoned me when I was a baby and lied to me since I was child and beg them for enough money to have a disabled bathroom which I had to do a couple of years ago?” he said.
“We have had so much stolen from us, so much taken away.
“The one thing which should not be taken away, the one thing which should be returned to us is dignity - and dignity comes with empowerment.”
He said the compensation would give him the ability, for example, to get his house to the point where he could cope not only with his ill health but also his wife’s cancer, to have insulation which worked and to fix the door which he has not been able to afford to do.
Asked if he was bitter about the years which have been stolen from him, he replied: “Bitter is just a cancer which eats at your soul.”
Yet he was angry at the decades of lies but said somehow he had managed to keep fighting.
“Certainly, the level of ignorance even among many well-meant politicians was quite clear and now the report is out, the understanding will hopefully follow across other organisations,” he said.
He pointed out that the public inquiry chairman, Sir Brian Langstaff, had said the tragedy was not an accident.
“I have said that since 1996,” he said. “It has resulted in me being marginalised, doctors treating me like a crackpot. It has affected my access to medical care.
“It has affected the attitude of medics towards me which has impacted on my family’s care on some occasions.
“It has socially isolated me. It has driven a wedge between me and my family.”
He said the hardest part for most victims was struggling with the damage done to those they loved.
“It is the damage to our children, the damage to our wives, the damage to our parents,” he said.
“It is seeing the suffering in their eyes that is probably the hardest thing when you know that what you are going through is actually the cause of that pain.”
Tomorrow: Bruce Norval reflects on the stolen years and stigma he faced as a result of being given infected blood as a child.
