Infected blood scandal: 'My dad suffered a vile death'

Greg Murphy said his dad suffered vile symptoms due to receiving infected blood

Greg Murphy could not understand why his father Bill had been in such a rage when he told him he had borrowed his electric razor to shave with.

The teenaged Greg had no idea that his father’s reaction was one of fear that his son might pick up the infections that Bill had been living with for years.

Bill Murphy, from Liverpool, was a haemophiliac, and one of the estimated 3000 people who would die as a result of being given infected blood products.

Greg, now 56, said the symptoms of his father’s illnesses were "vile".

'Vile symptoms'

In a submission to the Infected Blood Inquiry, Greg described how Bill would suffer from terrible, spontaneous oral bleeds, "which seemed to come from nowhere”.

They were, he said, “a direct result of hastening liver failure caused by cirrhosis caused by Hepatitis B and C infections”.

"We recall us all being at a Chinese restaurant when his mouth suddenly started to profusely pour with blood", he said.

"He had to wear dark clothes to accommodate for such situations.

"Eventually, we stopped going out altogether."

It is believed Bill was infected in 1968. Over the years he contracted Hepatitis B and C, developed cirrhosis, and was diagnosed with liver cancer in spring 1994 and died shortly afterwards at the age of 59.

Greg remembers his father being sick through his childhood.

He recalls visiting him in hospital on Christmas Day 1978 and seeing his face a jaundiced yellow colour.

His complexion would grow orange from the cumulative effects of the contaminated transfusions, and the full extent of his illness became apparent in 1991 as Bill, an accountant by trade, was recovering from knee surgery.

By the time of his death three years later, Greg "knew every corner" of the Royal Liverpool Hospital.

The infected blood scandal traumatised the Murphy family, and it was not just Bill whose health was destroyed by it.

His two brothers had HIV from infected blood, and died from their illnesses.

But it would be 30 years before the Murphys, and thousands of other families around the UK, would get the justice they had long fought for.

In the past week, inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff issued his excoriating report into the infected blood scandal.

The government bill ensuring a full compensation scheme for the families affected was one of a number passed by MPs before Parliament was dissolved on Friday, ahead of the general election.

"My mum was widowed at 56, she is 86 now," Greg said.

"She may be receiving financial security after 30 years.

"That gives you the perspective of all of this."

In his report, Sir Brian condemned the "systemic, collective and individual failures to deal ethically, appropriately, and quickly, with the risk of infections being transmitted in blood, with the infections when the risk materialised, and with the consequences for thousands of families".

"This was our Hillsborough Inquiry moment," said Greg after Monday’s report was made public.

"The genie is out of the bottle, and they cannot put it back."

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