A story of medical negligence has come out from Jharkhand during an investigation on Saturday, 25th October, where the lives of five young children have been shattered. These children, all suffering from the blood disorder thalassemia, have now tested positive for HIV.
The incident happened in Chaibasa town, and it is strongly believed that the children got the deadly virus from contaminated blood they received during transfusions at the local Sadar Hospital blood bank.
The whole situation came to light after a 7-year-old child receving blood trafusions for Thalassemia tested positive for HIV a week ago. This poor child had already received about 25 blood transfusions from that blood bank. After the result, the family of the child complained that the local blood bank had given their child HIV-infected blood.
After the complaint, the state government formed a five-member medical team from Ranchi to investigate. The team quickly discovered four more children, all thalassemia patients, who had also tested positive for HIV.
The investigation, led by Jharkhand’s Director of Health Services, Dr Dinesh Kumar, has already found serious problems. Dr Kumar himself stated that the “initial investigation indicates that contaminated blood was transfused to a thalassemia patient.”
The team also found some discrepancies at the blood bank during the probe, which confirms the carelessness. While the local civil surgeon mentioned that other things, like dirty needles, could also cause HIV, all evidence is pointing right back to the blood bank.
This incident is especially concerning for Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district, where there are already 515 HIV-positive cases and 56 patients being treated for thalassemia. The probe team, led by Dr Kumar, is made up of several other experts, including Dr Shipra Das, Dr S. S. Paswan, Dr Bhagat, Dr Sushanto Majhee (the District Civil Surgeon), Dr Shivcharan Hansda, and Dr Minu Kumari.
