Durban - A Durban nurse says she is still battling to be properly compensated after she contracted HIV 13 years ago from a needle stick injury to her left thumb while attending to a patient at the private hospital where she worked.
The nurse - who cannot be named because of her HIV status - says the hospital’s insurer, the Compensation Fund, deemed that she was only 15% disabled, and paid her accordingly, and is now rejecting her appeals to reconsider because of her declining health and inability to work.
The fund has launched an application in the Pietermaritzburg High Court, seeking an order declaring that it has fulfilled all its obligations to her.
But the nurse, with the assistance of Durban’s Legal Resources Centre, is fighting back.
In her affidavit, she says she had worked at the hospital for 10 years when, in September 2003, while on night duty, she sustained the injury while administering insulin to the patient.
She should have been given prophylaxis treatment within two hours, but none was available.
She fell ill that December and when she was tested the following January, it came back positive. At that stage her CD 4 count was 697.
Her first claim to the fund was rejected. A tribunal was set up only in 2006. During the hearing, she said, the fund’s attorney argued that she had contracted HIV through sex.
The tribunal finally ruled that it would pay for the diagnostic procedures, but any other treatment would only be payable on confirmation of the source.
The nurse said after constant badgering, a second tribunal was established in 2009 when she learnt that her patient had never been tested because she was critically ill at the time (she later died) and her family had refused permission.
Disappointment
“The tribunal expressed its disappointment at this... and in view of this omission and the evidence, found in my favour,” she said. Finally, in 2010, she received confirmation that she was to be compensated for 15% permanent disability and was advised “should your condition deteriorate to the point of advanced Aids or poor response to antiretroviral treatment, your PD (permanent disability) shall be adjusted to 100%”.
“Later that year my health deteriorated. Initially the fund refused to authorise ARV treatment because my CD 4 count was above 200, at 280.
“My doctor intervened and pointed to national and international guidelines which state treatment must commence if the count is under 350,” she said.
Her condition continued to worsen and, by 2012, her doctors reported that she was suffering from chronic depression and ARV side effects.
In letters to the fund recommending that she be declared 100% disabled, they said she was now “severely functionally disabled” and was also suffering from peripheral neuropathy (nerve damage) and could barely stand.
But the fund would not budge, saying the neuropathy was not a side effect of HIV and her CD 4 counts were acceptable.
In his affidavit, fund administrator Shadrack Mkhonto said the nurse had been paid a lump sum of R55 500 and it was paying for medicine.
“She is dissatisfied and has complained to the fund, the minister of labour and even the president.”
He said the 15% was based on the fact that she had a CD4 count of 1 114, “equivalent of a normal person”, at the time.
“A person can only be found 100% disabled should they acquire Aids or have a very poor response to medication.”
Mkhonto said the nurse had not properly appealed against the award and her claim had “thus prescribed”.
The matter is pending before the court.
The Mercury