Hospital to pay woman Sh2m for testing HIV without her consent
A hospital has been fined Sh2 million for conducting HIV tests on a woman without her consent.
The woman had been initially awarded Sh900,000 by a tribunal but Justice Hedwig Ong'udi increased the fine.
Ong’udi noted that a test like that of HIV cannot be lumped with other tests and assumed to have been consented to.
“There must be counselling and preparation before this test is taken. None of these was undertaken,” Justice Ong'udi said.
The woman was an employee at the hospital. She sued her former employer for testing her without consent, without pre-test or post-test counselling and unlawfully disclosing the status causing her so much psychological trauma.
She had been awarded Sh900,000 by the HIV-Aids tribunal as compensation for damages.
But the court found that...