With a spatula
During the 1980s, more than 150 children who had been diagnosed with haemophilia in the UK turned out to be infected with HIV, according to information in documents from the national archives seen by the BBC. Some of the affected families are submitting evidence to a public investigation into what is known as the worst health treatment disaster in this country.
By BBC Mundo
It all happened almost 36 years ago (around the end of October 1986) and yet Linda says she will never forget the day she was told her son had been infected.
She had been called, along with her 16-year-old son Michael, to a consulting room at Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
As a young boy, Michael was diagnosed with hemophilia, a genetic disorder that prevented his blood from clotting normally.
Linda had assumed that the meeting would have to do with preparations for the transfer of Michael’s care to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the largest in the city.
“It was supposed to be so routine that my husband [el padrastro de Michael] He was waiting outside in the car,” he says.
“All of a sudden, the doctor says ‘sure, Michael is HIV positive,’ and he said it like he was talking about the weather. I felt an emptiness in my stomach.”
“We got in the car, I told my husband and we went back to the house in silence. We never spoke, that was the shock”.
positive test
The AIDS crisis was still just beginning: in just a few months, the campaign entitled “Don’t die of ignorance” would bring the disease into every living room in the UK through a massive campaign.
But the stigma of the disease was real enough.
By 1985, dozens of parents had withdrawn their children from Hampshire primary school after a 9-year-old pupil – also a haemophiliac – tested positive for antibodies to AIDS, as HIV was known at the time.
Michael didn’t want his friends or family to know.
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