Appeals: Confirmed Referee Decisions : #177 - February 8, 2005

D E C I S I O N

Request for Review # 10225

The Claimant submitted a claim as authorized representative of a HCV Infected Person.

The claim was rejected by the Fund Administrator who, in his letter of September 21, 2004, indicated that the Claimant had not provided evidence that a blood transfusion had actually occurred during the 1986-1990 Hepatitis C Settlement Agreement period.

Therefore, the Claimant submitted a Request for Review following his father's death, and asked the Referee to reverse the Administrator's decision.

The Claimant appeared before me on January 25, 2005, and explained that his father had undergone a serious automobile accident in 1956, that he had received several blood transfusions at the time, and that he had been hospitalized on several occasions during the following years including the 1986-1990 period.

Having finally been able to acquaint himself with the relevant extracts of his father's record at the Centre Hospitalier Saint Laurent which is closed since April 1996, the Claimant recognized before me that there was no evidence to the effect that his father would have received a transfusion during his stay at the Centre Hospitalier Saint Laurent. Therefore, the Claimant recognizes that there is no evidence that his father actually received a transfusion during the period covered by the Agreement.

Incidentally, this information taken from the Centre Hospitalier Saint-Laurent records corresponds to the answer provided by one of the Claimant’s father’s Treating Physicians who indicated in the Treating Physician’s Form (Tran 2) that the Claimant’s father had not receive a blood transfusion during the period between January 1, 1986 and July 1, 1990 (page 32 of the file). This same Treating Physician confirmed, by way of a note dated September 25, 2003 addressed to the Administrator’s representative, that there was no mention in the hospital records of a transfusion between January 1986 and July 1990, and that his answer as to whether the patient had indeed received a transfusion during the period of the agreement was still "no".

The Claimant recognizes before me that he had not succeeded to establish that his father had indeed received a transfusion during the 86-90 period, and says he understands that in this context, I would have no other choice but to reject his Request for Review.

After hearing the Claimant, after reviewing the documentation and in particular, the extracts from the Claimant's father's records at the Centre Hospitalier Saint-Laurent and of the Treating Physician, I conclude that the Administrator’s decision to refuse the Request for Compensation was well founded and therefore, I reject the Request for Review.

Montreal, February 8, 2005

Jacques Nols
Referee