Guest guest Posted November 18, 2006 Report Share Posted November 18, 2006 Dear FORUM, In continuation with the posting referred to the above theme let me also relate a similar incident that i came across very recently and are trying to put things together: A srilankan woman aged 48 years with her husband, was down in india very recently from Geneva where the latter is working. They came down to India on a tourist visa. They had no children and visited a local infertility treatment clinic in Chennai on a hear say basis. The woman (victim) had a very low educational background, was naive, a foreigner with only a limited period of visa (6months only). It was also noted that she had an embryo transfer where in the sperm inserted was from an out side donor. After all the tests conducted the doctors have given in writting that she has only 10 -15% chances for going through the fertility treatment. She was only 40kg while she was taking the treatment meaning to say she was weak. How ever after spending nealry 1,75,000/- with the clinic/hospital within a period of only 2 months or so the following interactions and incidents happened as related by the patient: 1. She had the embryo transfer on October 4th 2006, from an outside sperm donor, but kept confedencial due to ethical reasons of the morality attahed. How ever she was given a test for HIV assesment, without a pre and a post test counseling where in luckily she was HIV negative and the worst situation was that she had been denied the rights to know the status of the donor. How could this be ethical? This appears as if she had spent 1,75,000 to recieve HIV, in case she would have been identified to have got the sperms from a donor? How do we tackle such situatiions? 2. She had been under the impression that she was pregnant, while she hits hard that it was said so and a letter had been given to her dated 6th october 2006, that her clinical status of pregnancy would only be revealed on the 19th of october 2006, while she went for a letter of request from the hospital for renewing her visa, a letter was given on the same date october 6th 2006, that she was clinically negative. How could the hospital give two letters of opposite characters? The husband left India, keeping his wife under the custody of a guardian thinking that she is pregnant. While the vicitm went for the letter of request for the visa extension, to the same hospital it was then that they questioned her as to how could she assume that she was pregnant while she was not so. the vicitm broke down for two reasons one being for the fact that she was duped with this entire episode and the other being that she had no moral or physical support. 3. In the event of her visa getting over, the immigration has asked her to produce a letter from the local police station that there were no negative repercussions against her for the time she was living in India. The police refused to give her a letter in the event that she had not registered with them being a srilankan, where as sources say that tourist visas do not need registrations. What we percieve: 1. It is an eyeopener while we were thinking of the traditional ways of HIV transmission there could be other non sexual methods of HIV transmission especially under such circumstances where in sperm donors are usually the rick shaw wallas, auto drivers etc. who does it commercially. 2. The vicitm of the above case now is helpless not knowing how to leave the country? What we are doing as an organisation (SFDRT): 1. We are interacting with the high officials of the police to take the case up at two levels one being a cheating case against the hospital, and the other taking the local police into task for having failed to guide a woman in distress; 2. The case taken to the counsumer court for having duped and exploited the case for the purpose of illegal earnings. 3. To rake the problems associated with the ethical information on situation of HIV, for the donee to know of the status of the donor in this case not being informed. Under the circumstances of only 15% chances of success why was the vicitm been forced to undergo the fertility treatment? She has also been forced to go through the treatment again if she wanted a letter for visa extension. While this situation is new to us we are taking legal guidances, how ever i was interested in sharing this new experince of ours with others and we welcome your suggestions under this context. With warm regards Shayamla Ashok SFDRT E-MAIL: <aabinand@...> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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