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Toddler contracts HIV after blood transfusion, hospital denies negligence
The baby was admitted to the hospital last July to treat a heart ailment and was given blood transfusion.
Barely two months after a pregnant woman tested HIV positive after blood transfusion at a government hospital in Sattur in southern Tamil Nadu, parents of a two-year-old girl on Tuesday alleged that their daughter had contracted the deadly virus at the Coimbatore government medical college hospital where she was given blood transfusion.
The girl’s father told the media in Coimbatore that his daughter was admitted to the hospital last July to treat a heart ailment and was given blood transfusion.
“When she developed complications, she was again admitted this month and during tests, it was found that she had contracted HIV. She was not taken to any other hospital,” he said.
Dismissing the charge, the hospital’s Dean Ashokan said the girl could have been infected with HIV at some other hospital. He explained that during the treatment the child was administered with 50 ml packed red blood cells after proper examination as she was underweight.
“On receiving the complaint from the girl’s parents, he had gone through the records and found nothing wrong,” Ashokan said.
Doctors found her HIV positive on February 6, after carrying out tests, he added.
In December, there was a furore about the condition of blood banks in the government hospitals in the state after a pregnant woman contracted HIV at a state-run hospital in Siattur.
The woman later delivered a baby and is being monitored by the public health authorities in Madurai. She has been offered a government job.
