The Community of Madrid was ordered by the Superior Court of Justice to pay €150,000 in compensation to a cancer patient who contracted HIV in 2018 after undergoing a CT scan with contrast at the Gregorio Marañón public hospital.
According to the country, the patient was asking for 400,000 euros in compensation. In the same hospital, in the same year and with the same test, there were already five cases of hepatitis C. The court reviewed the health records of all patients who underwent the medical examination on the same day.
The CT scan is a radiological exam and the contrast is made with a substance that increases the visibility of structures or fluids inside the body. Transmissions may have occurred when contrast was given intravenously.
In the case of the 32-year-old patient who will be entitled to compensation, she had ovarian carcinoma, peritoneal carcinomatosis and tumoral ascites. When did they go kidney problems detectedin December 2018, his HIV infection was tested and confirmed.
The Community of Madrid did not assume any error and decided not to compensate the patient, who filed a lawsuit. In court, the regional government justified the actions of the Madrid health system, stating that the infection had not been “related to the care received” and that the health care provided had been “adequate”.
“It cannot be excluded that the HIV infection is related to his work as a dentist or to the care received in private centres”, he added.
In a judgment issued on February 23, the Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court of Madrid decided that “the existence of two positive cases of HIV on the date on which the TAC was carried out on the complainant and the recognition by the administration of flaws in the work procedures (which determined the outbreak of hepatitis C infection)” led them “to consider plausible the hypothesis that the complainant was infected as a result of of this test”.
In deciding in favor of the complainant, the judges took into account the precedent of hepatitis C infections in the same center and with the same test.
On May 11, 2018, five patients underwent a CT scan with contrast in one of the wards of the Hospital Gregorio Marañón, in Madrid.
Several months after the test, two of the patients showed symptoms of infection and, after analysis, were diagnosed with the above viral illness. The hospital implemented the epidemiological protocol to verify the extent of the infection and were three more cases detected.
ZAP // 
