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When David McKinnon learned that the blood transfusion he received during surgery as a young man had infected him with hepatitis C, he began the process of applying for compensation from the federal government.
Mr. McKinnon, who was among the thousands of victims of one of the most tragic health scandals in Canadian history, wanted to ensure that his wife, Elizabeth, and their six children were cared for.
He passed away in 2010 at the age of 50, four weeks after tumours on his liver related to the disease surfaced for a second time. But his widow is still waiting for the money that was promised by the government.
“We spent all kinds of money and time to get all of the documentation that was required for the file to be accepted. It took probably two years,” Elizabeth McKinnon said in a telephone interview from her home on Vancouver Island on Thursday. “And there has been nothing but ‘we have to wait for this court hearing and that judgment.’”
The McKinnons are among the victims, and families of victims, who are entitled to a share of the compensation package that was offered by the federal government in 2007 because of the inadequate safeguards that had been placed on the Canadian blood supply. But because the billion-dollar fund for those who were infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) through tainted blood before 1986 or after 1990 has run dry, more than 300 claims have gone unpaid.