Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) - October 19, 2001
A distraught Eastern Cape family is suing the provincial blood transfusion service and a doctor at a public hospital after their child was allegedly given a transfusion without their consent - and the blood was contaminated with HIV.
The family's lawyer, Bantu Njamela, claims the one-year-old child was infected with the virus after a blood transfusion at the Mercantile hospital last year. Njamela says the family has suffered emotional trauma as both the child's parents have tested HIV-negative.
The child was taken to the Mercantile hospital in May last year to be treated for diarrhoea.
The family did not know their child had been given a transfusion until December last year when the child was taken for treatment at another hospital. A doctor at the Livingstone hospital informed them the infant had tested positive for HIV.
"The mother then recalled a nurse telling her the baby had been given blood at Mercantile," says Njamela.
Doctors at Livingstone ran tests on the child's parents and the results confirmed that they were not HIV-positive. The family then instructed their lawyers to investigate. Njamela says he has found evidence that the child was given contaminated blood.
Eastern Cape blood services head Dr Arnaldo Santos said his organisation was aware of the legal action, but had not been formally notified.
Santos said blood transfusion is not 100% safe. "It is not impossible that this kind of situation could happen. But I don't think we can be sued successfully for something which is humanly impossible to control."
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