A victim of the infected blood scandal has said he is “livid” with the government’s “paltry” compensation offer.
Under the recently announced package, victims of the scandal could receive as much as £2.7m each.
In addition, there is a £10,000 “unethical research” fee for people who were infected while being a part of studies.
For pupils who were at the Lord Mayor’s Treloar’s College – where children with haemophilia were experimented on without their knowledge – this figure is £15,000.
But Glenn Wilkinson, who had routine dental treatment using contaminated blood products which infected him with Hepatitis C, told Sky News “it’s just an outrage”.
“We’re actually livid with anger,” he said. “After all these decades of fighting, after going through a six year plus inquiry and being vindicated on everything that we’ve said, that the government are offering such paltry figures for Hepatitis C victims.”
Mr Wilkinson developed liver disease after contracting the virus and needed aggressive cancer treatment, which he described as “being on chemotherapy multiple times over multiple months and multiple years”.
“That’s what it felt like,” he said. “And it left my body in a terrible state.”
Richard Warwick, a former Treloar’s pupil who as a child was infected with HIV and Hepatitis B as an experiment, also told Sky News: “I don’t know where they’ve got this £15,000 figure from.
“To us, it seems exceptionally low for what was done to us as children from the ages of 10 at school. I think it’s derisory and frankly insulting.”
He also called the offer a “kick in the teeth” earlier on Friday, and said he was expecting a yearly payment for those people who were experimented on and were infected with unsafe blood.
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Nick Thomas-Symonds, the paymaster general, previously told Sky News the government had picked the £15,000 figure because it was recommended by Sir Robert Francis KC, senior barrister and interim chairman of the compensation authority.
“That is only one small element of the much larger amounts of money that are available under the tariff-based scheme,” he added.
Infected blood scandal campaigners demonstrate outside Westminster in July 2023. Pic: PA
As well as their compensation and any “unethical research” fees, victims of the scandal will get support payments “for life”, the government has confirmed.
It is thought that more than 30,000 people were infected with HIV or hepatitis after being given infected blood in the 1970s and 1980s.
Those who are alive, and the families of the deceased, will be able to claim money.
The full cost of the compensation scheme has not been revealed by the government, but Mr Thomas-Symonds said more detail would be put forward at the budget in October.
Source Agencies
