A man who nearly died twice after contracting HIV from infected blood he received as a baby is having to “prove his worth” to get compensation despite living with the disease for 40 years.
More than 30,000 people in the UK were infected with HIV and hepatitis C after they were given contaminated blood and blood products between the 1970s and early 1990s, and more than 3,000 have died as a result.
A year after the Infected Blood Inquiry concluded that survivors should receive a share of 11.8bn compensation fund for the harm inflicted on them, the charity Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) has warned that HIV victims are being unfairly “caught in a lottery” of compensation claims and are having to prove their diagnosis.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was infected in 1970 after he was given contaminated blood as a baby following an accident.
Despite living with HIV for 40 years and nearly dying as a result of complications twice, he is yet to be considered for compensation as the new scheme is picking patients at random to submit claims.
He told the Independent: “I have come back from the brink of death twice. I was written off twice. I’ve not even been invited yet.
“It seems strange to me that somebody who’s been dealing with this scandal and fighting for over 40 years, is put at the back of the queue for somebody who only found out three years ago.”
THT told The Independent that among the proposed criteria for prioritising compensation claims was the proposal that a person “lives with the consequences of Aids”.
THT suggested this would require people with HIV as a result of infected blood to prove historic diagnoses, “which include terms like ‘full-blown Aids”.
The charity said: “This should not be a necessary step and is yet another invasive question that victims will need to answer. Those infected were living with HIV without any treatment for many years. The documentation required to prove their claim is easily accessible, and a prioritisation system could see them stuck in a queue behind far more complex and less documented claims, even though they are some of the most impacted of all those affected by the infected blood scandal.”
The man, who is currently waiting to be called to submit his claim, told The Independent said the claims process has “retraumatised” him.
“We lost four of our lads in the last two weeks. We are losing our people, and these are people whom I’ve known 35 years that I have campaigned with,” he said.
He is one of around 200 survivors who came under the Macfarlane Trust, a charity created by the Department for Health to provide financial aid for haemophiliacs infected by HIV as a result of contaminated blood products.
Under that trust, patients “didn’t have to prove our worth… but now we’re having to prove our worth, you know, I’ve gone through all this for the last, you know, 45 years, 44 years, and now I’m going to have to prove that I’ve got what I say I’ve got.”
A spokesperson for the Infected Blood Compensation Authority said its priority was to pay as compensation to as many people as soon as possible.
They said: “We have committed to starting on average 100 claims a week. At that rate, we expect that every living and infected person registered with a support scheme will be able to start their claim by the end of 2025, and we are working through these as quickly as possible.”
“Each person making a claim has a dedicated claim manager to support their claim journey. There may be some instances in which we will ask for more information to complete a claim, and in those instances, we will help to source this data to relieve the burden on the person making the claim,” the spokesperson added.
Anyone not currently registered for compensation is urged to come forward here:
