Nothing prepares you for taking part in an inquiry into a traumatic event in your own life. I am a university lecturer in law, so I understand the aims of a public inquiry, its purpose and the rules of evidence, but when the topic under scrutiny is a disaster that has affected you personally, it’s something else. It reopens old wounds and forces you to revisit the pain and loss; you share private details of your life with strangers.
I was one of thousands of NHS patients who became infected with HIV and hepatitis C in the 1970s and 80s after being treated with contaminated blood. Even when the risks of infection from certain imported blood products were known, it took years before British hospitals switched to a safer treatment. By then, hundreds had been diagnosed with HIV and thousands had developed serious liver disease. Patients and their families endured decades of silence and denials before the government finally agreed, in 2015, to open a public inquiry into how the disaster had happened and why it was kept secret for so long.
