Victim of tainted blood scandal is forced to live on £80 a week benefits after doctors wrongly told him his own drinking caused his terminal liver condition

• Peter Burney, 60, was told his liver failure was his own fault for his drinking  
• The grandfather-of-three, who has less than two years to live, had to quit his job 
• Documents seen by the Daily Mail suggest that doctors knew that his hepatitis C may have been linked to transfusions he had received as a young man 

A victim of the tainted blood scandal was condemned to live on £80 a week after wrongly being told his own drinking had triggered his terminal condition.

Peter Burney’s life fell apart when he was diagnosed with end-stage liver failure a decade ago and had to give up his £90,000-a-year job as an office manager to survive on benefits.

The grandfather-of-three, who has less than two years to live and will next week select his own burial plot, now knows he was one of thousands infected by contaminated blood provided by the NHS.

But for two-and-a-half years after he was diagnosed, he was repeatedly told his condition was caused by alcohol.

Documents seen by the Daily Mail even suggest that for several months during this period Mr Burney’s doctors knew that his hepatitis C may have been linked to transfusions he had received as a young man.

Peter Burney, 60, (pictured with his wife Christine in 1994) who has less than two years to live, had to give up his £90,000-a-year job as an office manager to survive on benefits after doctor’s wrongly told him he was to blame for his liver failure

Earlier this month Mr Burney, 60, told the Infected Blood Inquiry he had recently been diagnosed with incurable liver cancer as a result of the hepatitis and would not live to see justice for the ‘mass murder’ committed by the Department of Health.

He said he and fellow victims were ‘dying in poverty’ because the Government has refused to give them compensation.

Speaking at his home in Stockport this week, Mr Burney said that when he was diagnosed with liver failure a decade ago, he had to give up his job running back-office functions at a local firm to live on £80 a week in benefits, plus help with housing.

For the next two years he believed his condition was self-inflicted, as a result of his drinking, meaning he could not get support from the infected blood scheme.

‘I drank… but I didn’t drink that much,’ he said. ‘I was always quite confused by that but I accepted what they said. They made me believe, and my family believe, that this was down to my drinking.’ At one point, on December 16, 2010, Mr Burney’s family was told he would not live until Christmas and doctors drew up a do not resuscitate (DNR) notice without his knowledge.

‘That notice would have gone to the coroner in the event of my death,’ he said. ‘He would have registered my death as alcohol-related cirrhosis. There would have been no mention of hepatitis C.’

Yet his medical notes show that on October 28 – nearly two months earlier – doctors at Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport referred to a ‘history of blood transfusion’ and hepatitis C which had recently ‘come to light’.

Documents seen by the Daily Mail even suggest that for several months during this period Mr Burney’s (pictured recently with his wife) doctors knew that his hepatitis C may have been linked to transfusions he had received as a young man

And on December 10 – six days before the DNR notice – his notes show doctors thought transfusions ‘might have been contributory to the acquisition of hepatitis C’. Mr Burney, said experiences like his were common among victims of the scandal.

‘It comes up again and again – the first thing they jump on is alcohol, but they also say it is a result of tattoos, of injected drugs, of gay sex – anything to say it is self-inflicted,’ he added.

Mr Burney had one transfusion in 1975 and another in 1986, at a time when the NHS did not screen its blood supplies. The first was after he was stabbed while breaking up a fight and the second after surgery for a kidney infection, but he will never find out which infusion carried the hepatitis C virus.

In 2011 – after requesting his own medical notes and learning he was a victim of the contaminated blood scandal – he was approved for ‘ex-gratia’ support payments.

He now gets £18,000 a year, which is due to go up to £28,000 next month. But Mr Burney said: ‘We are having to beg. They make it so it’s just never quite enough. They gave us these conditions – we didn’t catch them. And now they are letting us down again.’

Mr Burney had one transfusion in 1975 and another in 1986, at a time when the NHS did not screen its blood supplies. Stock picture

Infected people and their families have never been given compensation because the Government has never admitted liability. Instead, they have to jump through hoops to get discretionary support payments and meagre living allowances.

Mr Burney has been married to his wife Christine, 61, for 40 years and is father to Christopher, 37, and grandfather to Olivia, 17, Jessica, 14, and Mollie, seven.

He views himself as a provider and a father figure to the entire family. ‘You have to provide for your family,’ he said. Ministers are under pressure to set up a fair scheme for victims, but they insist no decision will be made until the end of the inquiry.

That will be too late for Mr Burney, who has been told that he has one to two years to live.

‘Next week we are going to pick out a burial site,’ he said. ‘I want to see where I’m going to rest. It’s not nice but it’s a reality.’

The first infusion he had was after he was stabbed while breaking up a fight and the second after surgery for a kidney infection, but he will never find out which infusion carried the hepatitis C virus. Stock picture

In his statement to the inquiry, Mr Burney said: ‘This Government is as bad, if not worse, than previous governments because this Government has been confronted with all the undeniable facts. Yet they are still standing by and watching this tragedy develop.’

Colin Wasson, medical director of Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Stepping Hill, has apologised for the way in which Mr Burney’s DNR notice was dealt with in December 2010, including the fact that he was not told he was the subject of a DNR.

In a letter to the inquiry, Mr Wasson said: ‘There is no apparent reason why a conversation could not have been held with Mr Burney around the completion of a DNR. I would like to offer my apologies to Mr Burney.’

Mr Wasson also apologised for the trust’s failure to tell Mr Burney the source of his infection was hepatitis C, probably caused by a contaminated blood transfusion. 

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