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Days after a pregnant woman contracted HIV-positive blood at a government hospital in Sattur, Virudhunagar district, a five-member medical team from Chennai visited the Sivakasi government hospital Friday for conducting a probe into the medical negligence.

The team headed by Dr. Madhavi inspected the blood bank, which supplied the HIV-tainted blood to the Sattur Government Hospital, where the 24-year-old woman had undergone blood transfusion.

It held enquiry with the doctors, nurses and blood bank employees.

The shocking incident had prompted the Tamil Nadu government to order examination of stocks in the state’s blood banks.

An FIR has been registered against doctors and nurses involved in the transfusion of blood besides blood bank workers for medical negligence under relevant IPC sections.

On Thursday, rthe Madras High Court took up suo motu a writ petition on the issue based on news reports.

A Bench of Justices S. Vaidyanathan and P.T. Asha agreed with an advocate, who brought the issue to the notice of the court, that it was a serious issue that required immediate attention of the authorities concerned. It impleaded the Health Secretary, Director of Medical Services and Joint Director of Health Services in Virudhunagar district as respondents to the petition.

The woman, who was eight months pregnant with her second child, had gone for a check-up at a private clinic in Sattur in Virudhunagar district, where doctors had advised her to have a blood transfusion citing haemoglobin deficiency.

Subsequently, she underwent blood transfusion at the Sattur government hospital (GH) and the blood was brought from Sivakasi.

It later emerged that the donor was HIV positive, officials had said, adding the recipient’s blood was also tested, which confirmed that she too had got infected by the virus.

The youth learnt about his HIV as well as Hepatitis B status many days later while undergoing a medical check-up for taking up a job abroad. He rushed to the Sivakasi hospital on December 10 to find out the status of the blood that was donated by him a week ago, but by then, the blood had been transferred from Sivakasi to the Sattur hospital and transfused to the pregnant woman.

English Summary

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