HeCSC is prepared to meet with Mr. Rock to decide how this can be implemented. Persons who received tainted blood were the victims of a public health disaster caused by an agency and governments that did little or nothing to screen donors who were at risk of transmitting hepatitis C. Canadians both young and old trusted a health care system that failed them.
Financial assistance is long overdue.
The federal government has continually resisted helping those who are very ill. The new lower numbers announced last week have made possible a plan to financially assist all victims. Any suggestions that such assistance would destroy the health care system have now been shown to be clearly wrong. It is unconscionable that the federal government would create this red herring and further stigmatize victims of tainted blood and in doing so divert the attention of the Canadian public from the true issue of compassionate financial assistance. Last week it was evident that the number of those infected between 1986 and 1990 had dropped from 22,000 to 12,000.