'People are dying waiting for this money'

A couple of weeks ago my phone rang. Renée Daurio was on the line, sobbing.

"I'm running out of money," she told me. She was worried about losing her home. She kept expecting a big cheque from the government, compensation for a wrong that had been dealt her.

But it never came and she couldn't figure out why.   I hadn't heard from Renée since I went to visit her in St.-Nicholas, a suburb of Quebec City, almost three years ago.

Back then, Renée was part of a class-action suit, battling the federal government for compensation for a blood transfusion that she had when she was a teenager, in which she ended up being infected with hepatitis C.  

For years, she and thousands of others like her had been told they were ineligible for government help because they had become infected outside the years 1986 to 1990.

That was the only period in which the government and the Red Cross acknowledged that bad blood had been distributed.

But Renée had refused being excluded and fought back. Though it wasn't easy.

Hepatitis C was destroying her liver and ravaging her body. The chemotherapy was making her even sicker and she was in constant pain and could hardly walk.

From her bed she fought on, using the internet to organize and counsel other hep C victims. But, in the meantime, her family was crumbling.

'Wall of blood'

In my 2006 documentary, "Wall of Blood", Renée and her husband Patrice were remarkably open about the terrible price of living with this disease

"It is like she doesn't exist anymore," said Patrice. "Everything you hope for, everything you wish for, everything you dream for, it is all nothing. It is like she is there but she is not really there."

David Gutnick is a Montreal-based documentary producer with CBC Radio's Sunday Edition. Over the past 20 years he's worked for many CBC and Radio-Canada programs. Last summer he reported from the Beijing Olympics. In 2007, he was in Mauritania, Togo and Ghana reporting on slavery.

His initial report 'Wall of Blood' can be heard here.(Runs 21 minutes)

His update on Renée Daurio is here. (Runs 9 minutes)

Renée could feel her marriage falling apart day-by-day and blamed her disease.

"It is a blood wall between my husband and I," she told me. "I hear my husband say things that I knew all along. But sometimes I did not want to believe that he really felt like that.

"I am mad at the government, I am mad at the Red Cross. Someone has to be held accountable."

A promise made

In July 2006, Renée Daurio finally received some good news.

With much fanfare, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that $1 billion was being set aside to compensate people like her.

A company named Crawford Class Action Services would handle the extremely rigorous assessments demanded by the government and the distribution of money. The cheques would go out in 2007, it was reported at the time.   That was three years ago. Back to the phone call at the beginning of May.

Renée told me that over the past three years she had filled out every form and sent in every bit of information that Crawford asked her to provide.

Her file is a foot thick with doctors' letters and medical records, going back decades. The bits that are missing are covered by affidavits.   She sent all the documentation to the right place and still she had not received a penny.

"The last three years have been difficult, my health is deteriorating, and I have been very depressed because I have been wondering what am I going to do?

"My husband left. He couldn't live with a sick woman anymore. And I have my children, my mother, my grandmother in my charge and I kept phoning Crawford saying 'You have to hurry or we are all going to be on the street' and I would phone them every week crying saying, 'Please, what else do you need?'

"'Ah, we need one more thing,' they would say. Then I would get it and that just exhausts you. And when you are sick — I am at a level six, the next level is death — so I really find it cruel and I am not the only one.

"People that are dying are dying waiting for this money."

At last

Renée asked me if I could find out why she hadn't yet received her money.

I phoned Crawford and told a manager that I was following up on Renée Daurio's file. The very next morning Renée got a call from Crawford. They had looked at her file again and decided she would be getting $366,782.55.

According to the Crawford Class Action Service website, more than 10,000 people in this group have filed claims.

Sixty-five per cent have been approved.

Six per cent have been rejected. The rest, more than 3,000 claims of people sick with hepatitis C, are still being evaluated.

As for Renée, her battle — at least this one — is finally over. Her money will arrive in a couple of weeks.

These days when she sits with her mom there are plans to make.

"It is not like winning the lotto," she says. "Money can't bring your life back or your health back.

"I will never be able to spend all this money. But my kids will have a good life.

"They missed out having a real mother. Other mothers would take them to the movies and go on outings, on picnics and things and I couldn't move.

"I just feel that after all these years justice has been served, we are being taken care of.

"OK, we won't have money worries for the rest of our lives. But at the same time, money will not bring back the last 13 years of my life. "

At this point, it is hard to feel really happy for Renée, given all that she has been through.

Her story, though, makes you wonder why it takes so long to compensate someone like her, and why are there so many hoops to jump through when the Harper government clearly promised these people would be treated with dignity and respect. 

And how many other Renées are still out there, suffering from both the disease and the injustice at the same time.