Letter: Judgements in hindsight of doctor jailed in HIV blood-transfusion case

Sir: Your leading article on Professor Allain perceptively illustrates the dilemma faced by health care professionals in Britain. Should we remain loyal to our employer or to the patients who depend on us and our professional integrity?

Disloyalty to an employer will lose us our job, and remember the NHS is a virtual monopoly employer. Disloyalty to our patients may lose us our professional status and possibly, like Professor Allain, our liberty.

Morale in the health and social services will continue to plummet while we are faced with such an impossible dilemma. It can only be resolved if there is frank and open discussion between professionals and government. There has been little evidence of this in Britain in the past four years.

We must learn from our mistakes. Failure to listen to Graham Pink cost the National Health Service half a million pounds. Failure to listen to Professor Allain cost the lives of 250 French haemophiliacs. What a waste.

Yours sincerely,

P. G. BADDELEY

Director, Beacon Medical Care

Brookthorpe,

Gloucestershire

27 July