Dubai: An expectant mother was wrongly diagnosed as HIV positive by a private hospital resulting in mental and emotional stress, her husband said, demanding an apology from the hospital.
Pakistani expatriate Khizra Afreen Farhad, 29, a Sharjah resident, was expecting her second child. She had registered at an Ajman hospital for delivery and was consulting with a doctor at its Sharjah branch.
In the last week of her third trimester on December 9, the doctor advised her to do some routine tests. These included blood tests to screen for infectious diseases such as Hepatitis A, B, C, HIV and HPV. The next day, at the follow-up consultation, the doctor informed her that she was HIV positive.
The test done by the hospital’s laboratory followed the ECLIA (Electro chemiluminiscence Immuno Assay) method. The test conducted by the hospital’s laboratory in Sharjah indicated an HIV anti-body load of 1.26 out of two. The report showed non-reactive levels to be less than .900. Borderline HIV readings are between 0.900 and less than 1.00.
Recalling the trauma, Afreen said: “The doctor said she would have normally informed my husband, but since he did not accompany me, she broke the news to me and then asked to speak to my husband over the phone. I broke down as this sounded like a death sentence, but she did placate me.”
Farhad Nasim, her husband a restaurant manager in Dubai, received the call at his office. He told Gulf News that he was stunned by the news.
“The doctor informed me that since my wife could not have a normal delivery and would have to go in for a C-section to avoid the baby contracting the disease. She also got my wife to sign the Ministry of Health infectious diseases notification form and sent her for a second test to the ministry laboratory, which we went for on December 16 as the next two days was a weekend.”
Nasim added: “Those two days were hell. My wife would not even touch our elder son.”
Finally, the test conducted at the ministry laboratory came back HIV negative. The couple submitted the report to the private hospital and on December 16, Afreen delivered a healthy boy through normal delivery.
“We expected the hospital to apologise to us for causing us so much trauma. On the contrary, they treated it like a routine event. The stress triggered a lot of bleeding on the day of the delivery,” Nasim said.
The couple has written to the Ministry of Health and is planning to lodge a formal complaint. They said the ministry was to send them a complaints form electronically and they were going to submit an online complaint attaching the relevant documents. Gulf News is withholding the name of the hospital pending a formal complaint with the ministry.
“How does any doctor inform a patient in the last trimester of pregnancy that she is HIV positive? Informing me was fine, but breaking the news to my wife caused so much stress. The least I expected from them was a sincere apology, I got none,” Nasim said.
Hospital’s version
The hospital’s director of laboratory services told Gulf News that patient safety and well-being is taken very seriously. “In a year, we usually get about five or six HIV positive cases of which two are usually borderline. In this case, when her first report came out positive, we did a second test at the hospital laboratory on the same sample the same day which came negative.”
He added that the patient was informed about the negative report and advised to go for a third test at the Ministry of Health. “Normally, in case of women who have had more than one pregnancy, there is a chance they develop some antibodies that react with the serum. In the end, the tests are done on a machine ... the calibrations can give a faulty report. It is protocol for us to inform the patient and we did in case of both the reports as the patient has to sign the infectious diseases notification form. We did everything we could to make the patient comfortable.”
Nasim denied getting the second report about the negative test. “I was not informed at all. If they did they would have taken my signature on the report. Where is it?” he asks.
Protocol for notification
A senior doctor, formerly with the government, confirmed that if a patient is found to be HIV positive he or she cannot be directly informed.
“If the patient tests positive, the laboratory has to order a second test. If the result is positive, the doctor has to fill the infectious disease notification form, inform the Ministry of Health and send the patient there. If the patient still tests positive, the police and immigration are notified... the laboratory or concerned doctor cannot directly inform the patient.”
