The Salford MP Barbara Keeley is campaigning to ensure families who have lost loved ones due to the NHS blood scandal get the appropriate compensation.
The government has concluded this week that people across the UK who were directly and indirectly infected with HIV, hepatitis C and hepatitis B will be eligible for compensation.
The compensation scheme includes people who have been affected by the scandal in other ways, whether they are partners or parents of victims, or those who have cared for people infected for at least a year.
However victims of the infected blood scandal have raised concerns about the government’s pledged compensation scheme. The Salford MP Barbara Keeley believes that there should be interim compensation payments made for families who have lost a loved one.
🎥 The infected blood scandal has affected many thousands of people, including several of my constituents.
I asked the Paymaster General what sum has been allocated for compensation, will it be open ended and what the timeline for full compensation payments will be 🧵👇 (1/) pic.twitter.com/RRZMUi7O3R
— Barbara Keeley 💙 🇺🇦 (@KeeleyMP) May 22, 2024
Barbara told Salford Now: “I think we ought to be regarding all that trauma and all the hurt and that loss as the same and if we’re prepared to make early compensation for people that are living we should also start to compensate people who have lost somebody.
“For a lot of the people I’ve been representing they lost a family member in the late 80s and the early 90s and that was a long time ago now. They’ve been campaigning for 30 years, there has to be compensation.”
For nearly ten years Barbara has represented a number of victims within her constituency who have lost a loved one due to the infected blood transfusions.
Barbara said: “From talking to families where they lost a parent or lost a child, they’ve just felt that the government hasn’t cared, nobody cared.
“It’s so hard to lose a parent at a young age when they shouldn’t have died, particularly of a terrible illness where there’s prejudice and stigma.
“So those people we need to recognise and those people should start to get compensation as soon as it can be organised.”
Payments of £210,000 will be made to the living infected beneficiaries, those registered with existing infected blood support schemes and those who register with the support scheme before the final scheme becomes operational.
Existing support payments will continue until March 2025, and the government has said no deductions will be made from any other compensation awards people are entitled to.
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