by Playfuls Staff |
22nd February 2007
It is every organ recipient's nightmare: After years caught between hopes and fears, they finally receive the liver or kidney they had been waiting for, only to wake up after anaesthesia [more] and be told that it is infected with the HIV virus.
It happened this week in Florence, where a female doctor made a mistake with devastating consequences. After examining a clinically dead woman with AIDS, the doctor wrongly put down "negative" instead of "positive" on the autopsy report.
"A human, but terrible mistake," wrote daily La Repubblica.
Two words mixed up, and the fate of three people takes a cruel turn.
"We will take disciplinary action against those responsible," said Enrico Rossi of the Regional Health Authority of Tuscany.
The three victims who received the woman's kidneys and liver would receive adequate compensation, he promised.
But is that enough to reassure nervous patients from Padua to Palermo? Politicians are now demanding a rethinking of the health system's entire control mechanisms.
As yet, it is unclear whether the organ recipients have been infected by the disease, but doctors think this is highly probable.
"In any case, the life of the three patients is not at risk. Even if they were infected, today's medication can ensure their survival," one of the doctors said. Whether this is much consolation to the victims and their families remains doubtful.
Health Minister Livia Turco described the incident as a "one-off accident" and begged Italians to continue "trusting our system."
The Director of Italy's National Transplant Centre, Alessandro Nanni, emphasized it was the first time in 40 years that such a mistake had happened.
In fact, two youths in Bologna were infected by the virus as a result of a transplant in 1986, but no HIV tests on transplant organs were envisaged at the time.
This week's serious accident happened at the worst possible moment, with the Italian health system receiving tough criticism in recent months.
At the beginning of January, an article in weekly L'Espresso caused the first shock: A journalist published photos from the Roman Polyclinic Umberto I, showing dog faeces and dozens of cigarette butts on the corridors as well as unlocked laboratories with radioactive substances.
A few weeks later a new scandal erupted when a 16-year-old female student in Calabria in southern Italy fell into a coma after a routine operation because of a ten-minute blackout in the operating theatre.
If and how doctors, hospitals and politicians can win back the trust of the sick is doubtful.
"We absolutely need double controls now," said Alessandro Ghirardini, who is responsible for patient security in the Health Ministry.
By Carola Frentzen, Dpa
© 2007 DPA
