The Patient with AIDS

Abstract

The Times of India dated 13 January 1994 featured on its front-page news of a tragic event. ‘A sixty-year old advocate... leaped to his death from the eighth floor of the Bombay Hospital and died of multiple injuries... (This followed) the revelation that he was HIV positive ... The hospital has in the past also dismissed five employees who tested HIV positive, one of whom also subsequently committed suicide, hospital sources stated...’ The next day, the front page of the same newspaper featured additional details: Dr. I. S. Gilada of the Indian Health
Organization stated to the reporter from the Times of India that he had personally treated at least a hundred patients rejected by the Bombay Hospital after they were found to be HIV positive. In particular he described a patient with abnormal collection of water in the brain (hydrocephalus) on whom one of the city's most eminent surgeons refused to operate because the HIV test was positive.