Doc booked for injecting HIV+ blood

The victim’s husband Surinder Singh, in his complaint to the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ludhiana alleged that his 32-year-old pregnant wife was under going treatment at Bhullar Nursing Home. When she went to the nursing home in November 2003, her fourth month of pregnancy, Dr Harpreet Kaur advised her blood transfusion of four units, as the woman was anemic.

Surinder Singh said that following this, he arranged for four units of blood which was collected from four donors. ‘‘Immediately after she was given blood, my wife suffered from jaundice but in due course of time she became all right,’’ he added.

The complainant alleged that the four units of blood were given to his wife without conducting prior tests for various infections and diseases. In the ninth month of her pregnancy when she went to Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, she was found to be HIV positive.

Surinder alleged that when he checked the blood samples of four people who had donated blood, it was found that one of the donors, a truck cleaner was HIV positive.

He alleged that his wife had contracted infection from this person, which obviously was not checked before transfusing blood to her.

Following the complaint, SSP Ludhiana Narinder Pal Singh asked the Ludhiana chapter of Indian Medical Association (IMA) to conduct an enquiry into the case. A committee comprising of founder vice-chancellor of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences Dr Livtar Singh Chawla, head of CMCH Pathology Department Dr Nalini Calton and chairman of the PNDT Advisory Committee Dr Kumkum Awasthy looked into the matter. The case was registered against Dr Bhullar following the report submitted by IMA regarding the case.