The Sudbury Hepatitis C Support Group is heading to Ottawa in hopes of getting federal Health Minister Tony Clement to promise compensation for Hepatitis C victims who received tainted blood transfusions.
The group will ask the government to live up to their election promises at a press conference on Parliament Hill next Tuesday. The conference is being organized by Penny Priddy, the NDP's health critic.
According to Ernie Zivny, a Hepatitis C sufferer and a member of the group, Hepatitis C victims were promised immediate compensation if the Conservatives were elected. This promise, along with others to announce compensation by mid-May, and then June 1, have also fallen through, he said.
"We're fed up with the Conservatives doing exactly what the Liberals have done and that's delay, delay, delay," said Zivny, 58, adding he was confident the new government would follow through on their promise.
"They were the ones that said, 'If we were in power, we would compensate the Hep C victims...immediately. So far there isn't even a deal."
According to their 2006 federal election platform, the Conservative's, if elected, promised to "immediately compensate all individuals who contracted Hepatitis C from tainted blood transfusions, based on the recommendations of the Krever Inquiry," the commission probing Canada's tainted blood issue.
In 1978, a spinal operation left Zivny in need of a blood transfusion.
He received the transfusion, which was infected with Hepatitis C and was forced to retire from his job at Inco Ltd. in 1981 because of the fatigue brought on by the disease.
Zivny said it was only about four years ago that he was actually diagnosed with Hepatitis C. At the time of his retirement, Zivny's doctors believed the fatigue was a result of the operation. Zivny also gave blood in 1987, prior to his Hepatitis C diagnosis.
As of Northern Life's press deadline, officials with Health Canada has responded to Northern Life's phone calls and were working on a response to Zivney's complaints about delays in Hepatitis C compensation.