IT was the blood that was supposed to give her life.

In August 1970 Lesley Hughes lay gravely ill in a hospital bed having suffered severe injuries including losing an eye in a horrific car crash.

Surgeons fought desperately to save her life using 44 pints of blood in transfusions.

However, the 61-year-old says that blood has given her a death sentence after discovering just last year by chance that it infected her with the deadly virus hepatitis C.

Today devastated Lesley and her husband Ray (pictured below) have called for an apology from the UK Government for using contaminated blood supplied by US pharmaceutical companies who had paid drug users, prisoners and prostitutes to donate blood.

Daily Echo:

“My first reaction was I wanted to go and scrub myself clean because I felt contaminated, invaded,” said Lesley.

“The thought I’ve had that blood going around me is hard to deal with.

“You are a Jekyll and Hyde with yourself because on one hand, I know the hospital saved my life and if I hadn’t have had the blood I’d have died that night because I was haemorrhaging so badly but you pull against yourself because you feel so angry the NHS knew where they were getting their blood products from and they let it be used.

"It feels like a death sentence hanging over me as the hepatitis C virus is often referred to as the silent killer slowly destroying the liver.”

Lesley though is not alone.

So far, more than 2,000 patients are thought to have died as a result of being infected with deadly viruses through imported blood in the 1970s and ’80s because before 1991, the Government did not screen donations.

Experts warned the Government those donors were high risk but it continued to buy supplies from US firms.

Daily Echo:

Last week the couple from the New Forest travelled to London where the issue was debated in parliament with MPs calling for a long-awaited national public apology and final settlement ahead of the results of a public inquiry into the scandal being published in March.

Lesley, explained: “I do feel very frightened but I have been very moved by all the stories, which are heart-wrenching to listen to. This has devastated so many people’s lives.

“How these people have had the strength to go decade after decade to try to get some justice is beyond me because in just one year I’ve been so frightened and nobody has been able to give me any answers.

“That’s why I’m trying to get recognition for the people that can’t speak for themselves now. We will fight until the last one of us is alive.

“No amount of money if you are that ill is going to make you better. We want an apology and to know that the best treatment is available to us.”

Since hearing the devastating news Lesley has hepatitis C, the couple have been haunted by the day their lives were changed forever.

Lesley, said: “It was August 1970. We’d been visiting Ray’s family in London and Ray was driving me home when someone just came out of nowhere.”

Asleep at the time, Lesley has no recollection of the crash which her husband can relive in minute detail.

With seatbelts not compulsory at the time, Lesley was flung through the windscreen and suffered horrific injuries.

She was rushed to St Thomas’ hospital in London. She had lost an eye, severely damaged the other, suffered a punctured lung and broke ribs which ruptured her liver in the impact.

Lesley said: “I was in intensive care and surgeons battled to save my life. I was so fortunate to have had the leading eye consultant in the country Professor Ridley on hand who helped save what was left of my sight. They fought so hard and they were so pleased they got me to the position I was able to walk out the hospital.

“I was in there for three months but the help the hospital gave me spurred me on to live my life.”

However, little did Lesley know that was only the beginning of her battle.

Lesley, who now lives with limited sight, began suffering addi tional health conditions many years ago that she put down to the accident including fibromyalgia, arthritis and extreme fatigue which led to her going into early retirement from her job in sales and marketing for a printing firm.

Last February though, Lesley had the norovirus and was visited by a GP at the couple’s Berkshire home because she was unable to keep down any of her medication.

However, as the doctor disposed of the needle from an injection, she accidentally pricked herself prompting emergency blood tests from Lesley.

Following three separate tests Lesley was told the shocking news she had hepatitis C – a blood-borne virus that untreated, damages the liver and over a period of years can lead to cirrhosis and even liver cancer.

Lesley, said: “I was called into the surgery. Being told ‘you haven’t got HIV’, ‘you haven’t got hepatitis A, B reading down the list.’ I said ‘pardon?’

He said ‘but you have hepatitis C.’ “I literally felt like someone had slapped me in the face.

“It was like roulette when he was reading through what I could have been infected with, like HIV.

“Fortunately I’m not a person who cries easily. I went home and just sat there. I didn’t know what to think.

“Fortunately we haven’t had children because I have since discovered it is possible to pass hepatitis C to your children.”

The couple say they are not angry with the hospital and doctors who did everything they could to save Lesley but with the NHS for using contaminated blood and the lack of testing in place since 1991 for those who had transfusions in the period where screening donations was not in place.

Ray said: “I’m very angry about the situation. Lesley was contaminated back in the ’70s and she has only found out purely by chance last year but the information that Lesley had a transfusion sits clearly on her medical records.

“What comes out of this is Government complacency and a cover-up. People like Lesley were in a high risk category. She had a transfusion back when there was no screening process.”

Lesley, who is next month seeing a consultant at Southampton General Hospital after recently moving to the area, added: “Every GP I have ever seen over the years with so many health issues and dreadful pain not one doctor has ever thought they would test me for this.”

Lesley and Ray are now desperate for the Government to resolve the issue.

A parliamentary report highlights how most people with hepatitis C receive no ongoing payments and they feel they have to beg for discretionary payments.

Ray said: “When we first found out, it was devastating. I just went to pieces in my mind. Not just this Government but successive governments will not own up to what has gone on and support these people whether financially or with care.

"People are saying they feel they are standing with a begging bowl to have some assistance to live. It is not acceptable.”

A Department of Health spokesman said: “This is a very serious issue and we are looking at possible improvements to the system of providing support to those affected.”