Woman with infected blood told for decades she was hypochondriac, Times (UK), May/2024

‘Four of us were infected blood victims — I’m the only one still alive’
Kaya Burgess
The Times (of London) 17/05/2024

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...hat-went-wrong-the-other-three-died-dsvf060fs

Headline not referring to woman whose story is told later in article.

'While many have been fighting for answers for decades, for Tracey McWilliams, 63, from Bournemouth the whole concept of the infected blood scandal is “all very new to me”.

For decades she suffered from a range of debilitating symptoms including “horrendous” itching, night sweats, fatigue, low mood and brain fog, but doctors repeatedly told her it must be down to iron deficiency, lactose intolerance, fibromyalgia, the menopause or simply the rigours of being a mother.

She found herself having to keep “packing jobs in” because they would leave her so exhausted that she would “end up in bed the next day … literally crippled with pain”. Her family had to give up their home as they could not afford the mortgage repayments and she was treated like a hypochondriac.

It was only in March last year, on moving to a new GP, that her symptoms were finally traced back 35 years to blood transfusions — 36 units in total — that she received after giving birth in 1988.

She discovered that, for three decades, she had been carrying hepatitis C, a virus that can cause extreme liver damage and cancer if left untreated for too long. Hepatitis C was only formally identified in 1989 and the symptoms are often slow to show and easily confused with other conditions. It is thought that hundreds of others may, like McWilliams, be unknowingly living with the virus.'

This whole scandalous story is full of just awful, terrible accounts of what happened.

 

Try this.
https://t.co/qEmCoNbT1E

 

OK. My fault, I think. Does this work?

/web/20240518114727/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/four-of-us-made-a-pact-to-find-out-what-went-wrong-the-other-three-died-dsvf060fs

 

OK. Maybe it's because the only link I have is the paywalled one as my browser automatically logs me in or something. Maybe someone else can do it.