**Family’s Search for Justice after Routine Hospital Visit Ends in Tragedy**
A Cardiff family’s heart-rending ordeal has reignited calls for action as the fallout from the UK’s infected blood scandal continues. Mari Jupe’s family maintain she died needlessly after being given contaminated blood following routine treatment for gallstones at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff. More than three decades on, her daughter Suzanne Morgan is still campaigning for answers and compensation, facing a system that many say is riddled with delays and obstacles.
Mari’s story began as an ordinary hospital visit for the removal of gallstones in 1991. Just prior to her planned discharge, she was told she was anaemic and needed a blood transfusion. Suzanne recounts that her mother reacted poorly to the first pint of blood but was nevertheless administered a second. In the months that followed, Mari’s health declined dramatically. Covered in sores and relentlessly fatigued, she became a shadow of her former self. On her 68th birthday, just ten days before her death, Mari was so exhausted she could not leave the car during what became her final family outing.
Despite her rapid decline and eventual death less than a year after the transfusion, Mari’s official cause of death made no mention of AIDS—her family’s belief—but cited hepatitis C, a virus primarily transmitted through blood-to-blood contact. Suzanne remains convinced her mother received infected blood that caused a fatal cascade of illness. No postmortem was conducted and her mother’s body, sealed in a bag and placed in a closed coffin, could not be viewed by the grieving family.
The wider context of Mari’s case is equally harrowing. Before 1996, tens of thousands across the UK unwittingly received contaminated blood products infected with hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIV. Over 3,000 people have died as a result, with countless others still grappling with chronic health challenges that impact every aspect of their lives. Routine screening of blood donations began only in 1991, a delay which many have argued was both preventable and inexcusable.
Suzanne’s attempts to secure compensation have been thwarted by a lack of surviving medical records, which were lost or destroyed during a period of transition to digital archiving. Applications to the government’s compensation scheme have so far been rejected. “The authorities say we need records, but those were destroyed,” she says. Suzanne has become a key voice among those continuing to demand accountability and support. She points out the irony of the scheme’s bureaucracy: “How dare they use missing records as an excuse when it was their system that lost them?”
The UK government did not act alone, Suzanne claims—pointing to the procurement of blood products from high-risk sources, including American prisons, where infection rates were high and thorough screening was absent. Other countries acted more swiftly to protect their blood supplies, she argues, while the UK’s reluctance left thousands vulnerable.
Progress towards restitution has been widely criticised as glacial. Although an independent public inquiry has found that many infections were avoidable, and £11.8 billion in compensation has been earmarked, the new Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) has been accused of moving too slowly. In the year since the final inquiry report, calls have grown more urgent, with two people reportedly dying each week while awaiting compensation.
Welsh officials have pressed Westminster to hasten payments. Julie Morgan, Labour MS, highlighted the “completely unacceptable delay”, noting that many claimants are in poor health and time is not on their side. Wales’ Health Minister Jeremy Miles said the IBCA was still recruiting staff and building systems, with hopes to prioritise those nearing end of life by year-end. However, even he acknowledged that payments would not be completed for all within that timeframe.
Mari Jupe’s death is emblematic of a broader national tragedy—one that continues to devastate families and challenge the healthcare system’s duty of candour and care. For campaigners like Suzanne Morgan, the struggle for justice is an ongoing one. “My mother wasn’t a haemophiliac, she went in for something routine—and they killed her,” she insists. As efforts continue to unravel the full scale of the scandal and offer redress to its victims, families like the Jupes remain determined that their stories—and their losses—will not be forgotten.