Woman from Dagestan seeks compensation for denial of medical care and disclosure of medical confidentiality

A former employee of the Gunib District Hospital is claiming 7 million roubles from her employer and the Republican Centre for Infectious Diseases, which failed to notify her of her HIV-positive status. Her colleagues knew about her diagnosis, but hid this information from her and did not prescribe her the proper treatment, human rights defenders have reported.

The female health worker was deprived of treatment for two years and, as a result, received disability. Law enforcers refused to initiate proceedings; and now she is seeking compensation for her damaged health in court, the human rights organization "Patient Monitor" told the "Caucasian Knot".

In 2020, the woman who is raising six children turned to her colleagues with complaints of weakness and a skin rash. She took tests, including tests for HIV infection, but received no results. Doctors diagnosed her with neurodermatitis and prescribed the appropriate treatment.

Over the next two years, her health condition worsened: she was rapidly losing weight, suffering from pains and severe inflammations. The treatment that her colleagues prescribed to the woman did not help. She learned her real diagnosis by accident only in 2022, when she was preparing reports at work and saw her name among the HIV-positive patients.

Only the patient's attending physician, who is obliged to notify the patient him/herself, can open the envelope with the result of an HIV test, but her colleagues found out about the woman's diagnosis, which is a violation of the medical confidentiality, Kamilla Abdullaeva, a lawyer, asserts.

Her colleagues kept treating the woman for another disease, knowing that she had HIV infection, while the victim herself was not aware about it, the lawyer has explained.

Suleiman Suleimanov, the coordinator of the "Patient Monitor", has called this situation unique, noting that the cases, where doctors ignore the principles of the medical confidentiality, are generally not common in Dagestan.

Ziyautdin Uvaisov, the head of a human rights organization, has treated court rulings with large amounts of compensation to victims as a real mechanism that will help influence the problem.