Infected blood scandal had devastating toll on Black Isle family
The thought of coming home from school and finding her father dead was one which used to fill Bruce Norval’s daughter with dread.
Instead, she would go and sit in the library until she knew her mother had finished work and only then return to their Black Isle home.
Mr Norval, who was diagnosed with haemophilia as a child, has spent more than 33 years campaigning for truth and justice after being infected with tainted products and contracting Hepatitis C.
While he has suffered chronic ill health, it has also had a devastating impact and wreaked havoc on his wife, Christine, and their son and daughter plus other family members which continue to this day, as Mrs Norval explains in the third and final part of our series.
‘It made us social pariahs’ - Black Isle campaigner
Compensation does not match decades of suffering for victims of infected blood scandal
Mrs Norval (56), a former physiotherapist, also has her own health problems.
She was the family’s breadwinner until she was diagnosed with breast cancer 10 years ago and she now has multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, which resulted in gruelling rounds of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and a stem cell transplant.
Although her husband has been at the forefront of the infected blood campaign, Mrs Norval has remained in the background until she waived her right to anonymity to speak five years ago at the public inquiry which has now finally published its damning findings.
More than 30,000 people in the UK were infected with HIV and hepatitis C after being given contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.
The inquiry report described the scale of the scandal as "horrifying" and accused doctors, the government and NHS of repeatedly failing patients.
As she contemplates the inquiry findings, Mrs Norval is candid yet considered as she outlines the long-lasting impact of the decades-long scandal on the family.
There was the stigma, for example, financial struggles, social isolation and mental health problems, strained relationships, the exhaustion of being the breadwinner and looking after the family and the house.
“My daughter talks about how she was so very worried her dad would die in front of her, or she would come home from school and find him dead, that she would go to the library after school every night until she knew I would be home from work,” Mrs Norval says.
It also resulted in the loss of quality family time because her husband was chronically sick or involved in campaign work.
“I am very, very angry,” Mrs Norval said.
“You have to find a place where you can leave behind that anger.”
She met her husband in London in 1988 when they were both working as auxiliary nurses and they married two years later.
On the day they met, he told her of his haemophilia but he only discovered when she was five months pregnant that he had hepatitis C.
In one sense, there was relief that the diagnosis provided answers to her husband’s ill health but it also meant plans to share parenting duties were scrapped as his health deteriorated and he was unable to work.
She returned to work but they also had to pay for child care as Mr Norval was often too ill despite his best efforts.
“I remember sometimes coming back home and he had fallen asleep,” she says.
“We never seemed to have any money. We never seemed to be able to save because we had to have child care. It put a strain on finances.”
Her weekends were also taken up with housework and shopping.
“We didn’t have lots of family outings,” she says.
“We lost out on quality time when the children were little.”
As Mr Norval became increasingly involved in the campaign to expose the truth, there were additional expenses such as a computer.
Although a compensation scheme has been announced by the UK government, the framework still has to be worked out and many campaigners worry that with any future compensation payments, they could lose their previously-agreed support payments and would be no better off.
Initial figures have indicated that someone with hepatitis C might be entitled to sum of between £600,000 and £800,000 but Mrs Norval stresses there is still much uncertainty.
“If they were honestly sorry about it, they would not be making us jump through hoops,” she says.
“It looks like it is another platitude rather than a genuine response to guilt.”
She reflects: “I am now in my late 50s.
“Even if they gave us millions, we don’t have the health to enjoy it.
“We cannot afford the insurance to go abroad for holidays and now Bruce is too exhausted he would not want to travel abroad.
“We don’t expect to be living in the lap of luxury.
“It would be nice not to worry about having to pay the electricity bill, or having to beg for a grant to get a bathroom.”
