Women were ‘gaslit’ by doctors after receiving infected blood during childbirth

Women infected with hepatitis C after being given infected blood during childbirth have described how they were “fobbed off” and “gaslit” by medics as they fought to seek help for symptoms linked to the virus.

A charity said these women were “let down twice”- first when they were given contaminated blood transfusions and again when they tried to seek help for symptoms. Ms Vincent, from Worthing near Brighton, now has liver cirrhosis and has to go for checks twice a year to see if she has developed liver cancer.

Having only drunk occasionally, Ms Vincent cut out booze altogether but her doctor did not believe her. But the nurse found the cause of Ms Vincent’s problems and in May 2015 she was given a scan which discovered that she had liver cirrhosis. “My GP knew all my history – I was getting itching, I had joint pain, I was sweating. He still never tested me for hepatitis C,” she said.Ms McWilliams changed GP surgeries in November 2022 and the new surgery ordered liver function tests, which prompted Ms McWilliams to do her own test for hepatitis C at home.

The 74-year-old told the PA news agency that she thinks about people who may have received her blood donations “all the time”, adding: “When I recovered after the birth of my daughter, I was so grateful that somebody had given me blood that I went and donated blood twice.She suffered symptoms of fatigue and brain fog after becoming infected, but it was initially dismissed by doctors as low iron.

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