Vietnamese man wrongly diagnosed HIV-positive

The People’s Court of Vinh City in Nghe An Province said that it had accepted the lawsuit from 43-year-old Hoang Khac Suu, a resident of Nghi Thu Ward, Cua Lo Town in the same province, who sues the Nghe An Preventive Medicine Center to require it to pay cash compensation to the man for the damage its wrong diagnosis has caused to him.

According to case files, while Suu was serving his term at a prison in Nghia Dung Ward, Tan Ky District, Nghe An in 2003, his blood was taken for an HIV test as part of a national sentinel surveillance program.

His blood sample was then confirmed by the Nghe An Preventive Medicine Center as “HIV-positive,” and he was monitored under code number 1068.

Hoang Khac Suu (L) tells the press about being considered HIV-positive for over ten years.

In 2007, Suu’s patient files were transferred from the center to the Nghe An Center for HIV/AIDS Prevention.

According to Suu, the test result was not disclosed to him at the time, and he never learnt about it until after he had been released from prison in 2013.

“In 2013, after I had returned home from my time in prison, I was put under the supervision of the Nghi Thu Ward Medical Center as an HIV-positive patient,” Suu recalled. “However, after several health checks, the chief doctor at the center found it strange that all my readings were fine after ten years of supposed HIV acquisition, and encouraged me to take the test again.”

Test results at the Nghe An Center for HIV/AIDS Prevention on September 9, 2014 and at the Friendship General Hospital of Nghe An both indicated that he was “HIV-negative.”

The decision issued by the Nghe An health department on August 18, 2015 in response to Hoang Khac Suu’s complaint.

The Nghe An Department of Health then issued a notice to Suu and local authorities in his neighborhood, demanding the deletion of his name from the list of HIV patients.

Suu proceeded to demand over VND773 million (US$35,000) in damages from the Nghe An Preventive Medicine Center, which included legal consultation fees, paperwork expenses, and compensation for the material and mental damage that had been done to him in the years living with the assumption that he was infected with HIV.

On August 18, 2015, the Nghe An health department issued a decision signed by its chief, agreeing to compensate a total of just over VND2 million, which included only the fee for re-taking the HIV test and transportation expenses, deeming all the other requests by Suu “unfounded.”

The department also rejected Suu’s demand for identifying the individuals responsible for his wrong results, saying they found no grounds to hold anyone accountable.

“Being deemed as HIV-positive, which is frowned upon by the society, I struggled to find a job after my time in prison. I even had to show my father-in-law the negative test results to be allowed to marry his daughter,” Suu grumbled.

Answering the press, Nguyen Xuan Hong, deputy director at the Nghe An health department, said Suu’s case is extremely rare among nearly 10,000 cases of HIV-positive patients tested in Nghe An since 1996.

“At the time, there were only two HIV/AIDS specialists in the whole province of Nghe An, while the testing facilities were not well-equipped. We do empathize with Suu and his family,” Hong said.