11 May 2022: Rejman - A

Yesterday morning required some ducking and diving while walking past the Royal Courts of Justice to avoid bumping into the amassed paparazzi who were there to greet the arrival of two “WAGS” (Rooney and Vardy) who were having a public tiff. Clearly, this was a big story because the cameras are back today. Just along the road, Dr Rejman has been devilishly dismissing the value of the lives, deaths and accompanying suffering of thousands of NHS patients infected by contaminated blood. Something is clearly wrong with our social priorities.

As he entered the Hearing Room, Dr Rejman made a specific effort to engage with Counsel to exchange a smiley greeting. Jenni did acknowledge his existence, but the doctor’s proffered smile was left hanging.

Straight to business with a memo where the witness is quoted as specifying the requirement for HIV litigants not to be able to come back with a subsequent claim related to Hepatitis – the dreaded waiver argument. In his own defence, Dr Rejman suggests he was simply putting in writing what others had said before the note was written; but unfortunately, he can’t recall any details of who he was prejudicially parroting. Basically, the gruelling journey to payment was not to be allowed to continue any further down any track, or in Dr Rejman’s words, to cover “any of this”. The Chair felt the need to intervene to query what was meant by “any of this”.

There were very quickly into the session some more of the “heh, heh, heh” mini-laugh noises, accompanied by strange breathy panting. Is it a nervous behaviour or is it a sign of the witnesses’ peculiar ability to see humour in human hurt? Time was, the title of Doctor brought an almost automatic level of respect, but Dr Rejman has long ago used up his quota of doctoral deference. Strangely, while claiming to be often quoting others when making historical hate-speech comments about infected people, he seems all too ready to assert it is what he believed or what he meant. How wonderful hindsight can be by allowing us to claim the kudos for the likeable things we say but letting us body-swerve any accountability for anything which could come back and haunt you. Where can I buy a big jar of that kind of hindsight? Then there is a bit of feedback to Jenni, that maybe too much is being read into some of the text of the documents being presented in evidence. He has already endured some schooling by Sir Brian about what counts as a legal claim. Counsel may need to educate Dr Rejman on what counts as weighty in evidence. More laugh-panting. Will somebody please just throw him a dog biscuit.

“With the greatest of respect, Dr Rejman, your last answers, I think, (relating to haemophiliacs knowing about Non-A-Non-B) must have been a matter of speculations since you have already gone to great pains to point out your non-involvement with haemophilia patients,” says Counsel to one of the witnesses’ answers. However, Dr Rejman is so convinced of his own speculative certainty that he does not see the ridiculousness of his “cake and eat it” assertions.

Counsel then returned to the opinions Dr Rejman felt to express about payments, some of which were not medical in nature (including having a view on someone’s wife having a job in a chip shop). The witness was unabashed in reserving the right for himself to pass comment left, right, and centre. His justification was his access to the claimant statements. So, he knew much more than just the medical matters, and so asserted his right to “throw in his two-pennysworth”.

The apparent attempts to cut down to a minimum any financial exposure was not about doing things “cheaply”, says the witness. Rather, it was part of the game where it is assumed that the lawyers for the claimants will push as far as possible to get as much money as possible, and so it was Dr Rejman’s role to go to the other extreme by picking out anything and everything that could be rejected or contested. The assumption was that all claims were greater automatically than they should have been. What a lovely attitude for a medically trained civil servant to hold. Sir Brian interjected with a question seeking to discover if Dr Rejman ever assessed a claim as not asking for enough money based on what they could or should have claimed. This brought a muted laugh from those observing in the room. The witness simply dug the hole deeper by saying that such a scenario would “never have crossed their minds”.

The initial situation for non-haemophilia infectees – i.e. transfusion patients – was to (reluctantly) accept that the haemophiliacs were a special case so would be deemed as eligible for payments, but everyone else did not qualify. Dr Rejman speculated (again) that the change to allow non-haemophiliacs to claim might have been due to an impending general election in the face of the Government sticking with “a difficult position to defend”.

Management courses describe there as being two types of people, X and Y. Very roughly, Type X people assume that everyone is looking out for themselves, on the take, lazy, dishonest, and untrustworthy. That thought process obviously influences how you deal with people. Type Y people, on the other hand, assume good faith and conscientiousness of workers or others. The type of person a decision-maker is will usually determine how they manage work and people. Dr Rejman described why he, and so the DH, wanted to keep any payment scheme administration in-house. He has already presented as a Type X in relation to infected patients. The same mind-set seems to apply to staff. At least he is consistent. But then, low and behold, we discover that with the claims on the payment scheme coming to DH, the individual claims would actually come to guess who? That’s right, Dr Rejman, the same guy who sought to minimise what was to be paid out, who anything could be paid to, and what could be the nefarious reasons a patient might have for making a claim. So, after all the minimising efforts, he got to decide what people are paid. On a scale of hawks and doves, giving this man such control was like installing a griffon vulture to run the chicken coop. But maybe that’s being unfair to griffon vultures.