Hull MP calls for compensation in "truly shocking" infected blood scandal
Protesters are lobbying parliament to demand compensation.
A Hull MP who has led the fight for compensation in the infected blood scandal has urged government to act as people affected by the scandal stage a mass protest in Westminster.
Campaign groups are lobbying Parliament from 11am to 2:30pm today (28 February) as they urge the government to stop the delay in paying compensation to victims.
The Hepatitis Trust says around 30,000 people in the UK were given blood infected with hepatitis C or HIV during the 1970s and 80s.
Hull North MP Dame Diana Johnson has asked the government not to delay compensation, and said: "People are dying - one person dies on average every four days from infected blood. I think about 80 people have died since last April when the chair of the enquiry said the government should start to pay compensation."
Although the Infected Blood Inquiry concludes in May, its chair Sir Brian Langstaff published an interim report concluding: "A compensation scheme must provide appropriate redress to all who have been wronged... time without redress is harmful. No time must be wasted in delivering that redress."
There will now be an ITV drama on the infected blood scandal, in a similar vein to the broadcaster's Mr Bates Vs the Post Office drama which pushed the horizon Post Office scandal into the public spotlight - something which Dame Johnson has welcomed.
She said: "Some of the stories are truly shocking. There was a school were children with haemophilia went to and almost all those children are now dead because they were given dirty blood, and I think that sort of story will shock the nation."
Dame Johnson leads the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Haemophilia and Contaminated Blood, and has been a leading voice on the scandal since a victim from Hull shared his story with her in 2010. She said she welcomes the ITV drama.
She said: "I've been doing this for 14 years now, so I don't really care whatever else needs to happen to get the government to act I'm all for it.
"People were told 'no, nothing to see here, there was nothing that could have been done' and it's only more recently it's been recognised that different decisions could have been made."
The government has accepted the moral case for compensation and has said interim payments of £100,000 have already been made to about 4,000 victims and some bereaved partners, but has said it will wait until the inquiry's full findings in May before it makes a final decision on compensation.