Calcutta: Doctors accused of shunning HIV boy

February 23, 2007

Doctors accused of shunning HIV boy

A STAFF REPORTER

Calcutta, Feb. 22: Seven-year-old Maniur Rehman desperately needs an

operation but surgeons at leading state-run hospitals wouldn't touch

him — allegedly because he is HIV positive.

The thalassaemic boy can consider himself a victim of the state's

health care system twice over — he probably got infected during one

of the regular blood transfusions he has needed for years.

Now, his spleen has enlarged — a complication of thalassaemia that

experts said can be life-threatening. But for over a year, no

hospital would admit him, his father says.

Sheikh Idrish Ali, a daily labourer from Sandeshkhali in South 24-

Parganas, says he has been doing the rounds of SSKM, Calcutta Medical

College and Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College hospitals without

success.

The blood that Maniur needed came from Central Blood Bank, Maniktala,

Idrish said. At first, he used to need a transfusion every two or

three months, but after his spleen enlarged in 2005, that changed to

five times a month.

The doctor treating him advised splenectomy (removal of a part or

whole of the spleen), and Idrish got him admitted to SSKM's

paediatric ward on December 20, 2005. On December 29, the boy tested

HIV positive.

" The doctor refused to do the operation and asked us to take him

away, " Idrish said. Maniur was discharged on January 3,

2006. " Through the whole year, we tried to get him re-admitted, but

in vain, " the father said.

He went to MCH where the medicine department examined Maniur on

December 23, 2006, and referred him to the paediatric department for

surgery. But the surgeons wouldn't operate on him. Ditto at NRS.

Two voluntary organisations, People for Better Treatment (PBT) and

Human Development Research Institute, offered help. PBT has asked the

state government to provide treatment and compensation and plans to

move court, its president Kunal Saha said

ation/story_7429912.asp & news=Doctors%20accused%20of%20shunning%20HIV%20boy & pubDa\

te=Thu%2C+22+Feb++2007+20%3A39%3A32+GMT & keyword=telegraph_home

Recommended Posts