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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 4 Hansard (21 April) . . Page.. 1076 ..

The experience in other states is that approximately 50% of those individuals who have received blood from a unit where the donor subsequently tested positive to Hepatitis C are deceased. The cause of the death has not been related to hepatitis C but to the trauma or condition that warranted the blood transfusion in the first instance. While only limited perusal of cause of death through medical records, has taken place in the ACT, this has been the case here also.

Consistent with the practice in other states, we will not be pursuing information on cause of death.

MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND COMMUNITY CARE

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY QUESTION TAKEN ON NOTICE

2 March 1999

Mr Stanhope asked the Minister for Health:

In August last year the Chief Minister told the Assembly that the Government would introduce amendments to the Blood Donation (Transmittable Diseases) Act to provide access to compensation for people who might have contracted Hepatitis C in the ACT from contaminated blood transfusions. Can the Minister say when the Government will introduce the legislation foreshadowed by the Chief Minister to enable access to the compensation package?

Supplementary: Minister, can you then table the details of the compensation scheme that will apply now that we are advised that it is not to be a legislative scheme? Can you advise whether the scheme will be administered by your department or the Department of Justice and Community Safety and can you advise on whether the Government's compensation scheme will consider claims from families of infected people who have died? And can you tell me whether the scheme will consider claims from people who may have contracted Hepatitis C from others who may have contracted Hepatitis C from others who contracted the disease from infected blood, but went for years without knowing their risk?

My answer is as follows:

As previously stated, at the time the Chief Minister made that statement it was the Government's intention to introduce legislation to achieve access to compensation. Since that time we have taken legal advice that suggests to us that we do not need to use legislation to achieve the goal, and in fact, that it would be a more effective and fairer way to manage

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