KEY POINTS:
Victims infected with hepatitis C in the 1990s bad blood scandal are still awaiting compensation from the Government while they battle their lawyers over fees.
Lawyers are claiming thousands of dollars in legal costs from compensation awarded by the Government to people who contracted hepatitis C from contaminated blood products.
A dispute that has dragged on for 14 months is preventing some 25 victims with haemophilia from receiving lump sums from the Government and delayed some from starting treatment for hepatitis C, The Press newspaper reports.
In December 2006, the Government announced a $31 million package for people infected with hepatitis from blood products before blood screening was introduced in 1992.
By then, about 180 people with haemophilia and almost 400 others had been infected.
To date, 486 victims have applied for one-off payments and the Government had paid out $25.5m.
About 155 of the affected haemophiliacs have received payments ranging from $43,200 to $69,600, enabling many to start a chemotherapy-type drug course for hepatitis C, a liver-attacking virus that can lead to cirrhosis and cancer.
But 25 victims, including two from Christchurch, have held off accepting compensation while they are in dispute with their lawyers, who are seeking costs of $12,700 to $18,500 a person.
The victims were among 55 haemophiliacs and 215 clients who signed up for a class action to sue the Government for failing to introduce national screening earlier.
The action never went ahead after a political settlement was reached following 14 years of negotiation between the Haemophilia Foundation and successive governments.
But lawyers Johnston Lawrence, of Wellington, and Penney Patel Law, of Auckland, still want the fees that were agreed when the civil suit was being planned.
Despite 14 months of negotiation between the foundation and the lawyers, the dispute remains unresolved.
More lawyers for both sides and more costs will be involved in an attempt to settle the row through mediation in Wellington next month.
- NZPA
