The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Hospital turns away HIV-positive woman

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 22, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Hospital turns away HIV-positive woman

Ramya Kannan

CHENNAI: An HIV positive woman requiring emergency blood transfusion was recently denied treatment in the Government General Hospital here and turned away.

The 40-year-old Chennai-based positive woman, who has been receiving Anti Retro-Virals since 2002 developed drug-induced anaemia late last month. Doctors at the Tuberculosis Research Centre here found that the haemoglobin content in the blood dropped drastically and advised immediate blood transfusion for her. Armed with a letter from the TRC, she approached the Sexually Transmitted Diseases clinic of GH.

"They refused to admit me and asked me to undergo tests at the Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centre in the GH. They gave me some tablets and asked me to come back only with reports," says the patient working with the Positive Network of Women. This process took another two days. After that it was the weekend, so she was asked to come back on Monday.

"By then I was too weak to walk. I had palpitations and a severe headache and had to be taken around in a wheelchair."

On April 4, she submitted the test reports, confirming her positive status and anaemia, to the doctor at the STD clinic. But he told her to seek admission in ward No.22, where blood transfusion would be done. Those who accompanied her to the hospital bought an admission ticket and wheeled her into the ward.

Not examined

In a complaint submitted to the Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society, it was alleged that the duty doctor there told her that admission was out of question and asked her to go to Tambaram without even examining her.

Her attendants once again took her to the STD clinic where the doctor told them to tear up the admission tickets and come the next day, as admissions for the day were closed.

"It is only because we cannot afford to go elsewhere for treatment do we go to the GH. If we are turned away from there too, where do we go," she asks.

On the verge of collapse, she was bailed out by members of the Positive Network of Women, who admitted her in YRG Care's unit in the Voluntary Health Services, Taramani.

There she received three units of A1 negative blood and remained in hospital for four days.

Clear instructions to all hospitals not to turn away patients, specifically positive persons, have been given.

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