The Superior Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) has ordered the Community of Madrid to pay 150,000 euros in compensation to a 32-year-old patient who contracted the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while undergoing a contrast-enhanced CT scan at the Gregorio Marañón Hospital in 2018.
According to the media eldiario.es, the sentence comes from an appeal by the patient against the dismissal of a previous lawsuit, in which she requested 400,000 euros from the Madrid Health Service (Sermas) for "damages derived from the inoculation iatrogenic from the HIV virus
As stated in the ruling, to which EFE has agreed, the plaintiff underwent a CT scan with contrast on September 18, 2018 after having undergone surgery the previous June for ovarian carcinoma by laparoscopy in a private hospital and undergoing chemotherapy.
Months later, in December, he tested positive for HIV and filed a claim with the Community of Madrid. The response of the Health Inspectorate was that "the patient suffered an HIV infection that has not been causally related to the care received at the Gregorio Marañón General University Hospital (HGUGM)", and that "the evolution has been satisfactory and the burden viral became undetectable."
Likewise, the Sanitary Inspection expressed that the infection of the disease could have another origin: "it cannot be ruled out that the HIV infection is related to her activity as a dentist or to the care received in private centers."
However, the plaintiff submitted an expert medical report for her defense in which it was concluded that the patient "suffered a contagion during the different therapeutic and surgical medical acts carried out at the Gregorio Marañón Hospital", since in July 2018 the patient had "A negative test for HIV".
In addition, this report ensures that the results "of the viral load and the CD4 lymphocyte count, place them in the first part of the evolution of the infection, making hospital contagion much more likely", and ruling out the suspicion of infection transmitted by transfusion.
Due to the hepatitis C (HCV) infections registered in five people between August and November 2018, also originating from CT tests with contrasts at Gregorio Marañón, laboratory tests were requested from all patients who underwent a CT scan on days 17 and September 18, 2018.
The result alerted that "three HIV positive patients" had been detected. One of them the day before the plaintiff's TAC and another the same day, which, according to the expert report, "are more likely to have been the source of contagion" and, consequently, "the direct cause" would be "in assistance provided at the Gregorio Marañón Hospital".
For this reason, and although a report from the hospital's Preventive Medicine Service indicated that none of these patients coincided "in the same room and shift" as the affected one, "the recognition of failures in work procedures (which determined the outbreak of contagion of hepatitis C) lead to consider plausible the hypothesis that the plaintiff was infected as a result of this test", according to the ruling.
