BENGALURU: Ten staffers of M S Ramaiah College hospital have been booked by Sadashivanagar police for allegedly transfusing a woman patient with HIV infected blood.
According to her brother, the 42-year-old married woman had gone to the hospital on October 5, 2013 with the complaint of infertility. She approached a doctor who advised her to undergo surgery.
On February 13, 2014, she was admitted to the hospital by her husband. As per doctor’s direction, she was transfused with blood which tested negative for HIV, and she was discharged on February 15.
Her discharge summary clearly showed that HIV 1 and 2 results were negative for Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
However, on February 19, when she got admitted for the surgery, she underwent some tests, reports of which came on February 20.
And to her shock, this time, she tested HIV positive.
Her brother alleged that the hospital authorities tampered with the medical records and changed the blood bag registration numbers. A private complaint was later filed in a local court, which directed Sadashivanagar police to register and probe the case.
DCP(central) Sandeep Patil said,“A case has been registered and FIR filed already. We will seek help of medical experts in this case as it is related to medical negligence. Investigations are under way.”
Dr Narsimhaswamy, Rotary Bangalore TTK Blood bank in-charge, without commenting on the case, pointed out some facts about blood testing.
“ID-NAT can detect HIV after a window period of six days. ELISA fourth generation kit can detect HIV after a window period of two weeks. If a patient (who was previously tested negative) has tested positive for HIV five days after blood transfusion, it may be because when the test was first done the window period was not over and the virus could not be detected,” he said.
MS Ramaiah Memorial Hospital’s chief administrator Dr V Narendranath said, “We have been following this case closely and as far as we know, an FIR hasn’t been filed. If it has, let the police investigate. We maintain that there was no error or negligence on our part.”
Karnataka is the only state in the country that has mandated individual nucleic acid testing (ID-NAT) of donor blood that has been deposited in government blood banks.
ID-NAT can detect infections in smaller window periods. An ID-NAT test ing facility has been set up at Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital and samples from government blood banks all over the state are sent there for testing.
Express had previously reported that the reason why private hospitals shy away from mandating ID-NAT is because it adds to the overall cost of the blood component.