Tainted blood: Court of Appeal upholds RM846,000 award
The award to accident victim is for general damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenities after getting infected with HIV during a blood transfusion.
PETALING JAYA: The Court of Appeal has upheld a High Court decision to award RM846,000 to a 28-year-old accident victim infected with the HIV virus through a blood transfusion in 2005.
The award was for general damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenities, thesundaily reported today.
It said the judges on the panel were Alizatul Khair Osman Khairuddin, P Nallini Pathmanathan and Zabariah Mohd Yusof.
They dismissed the appeal by Kinta Medical Centre Sdn Bhd (KMC) with RM30,000 costs, the daily reported.
KMC was appealing against a High Court decision on Feb 5, 2016, which granted RM750,000 as general damages, RM96,000 in special damages and another RM50,000 in costs, after allowing the victim’s civil suit for negligence.
Alizatul said the victim had suffered considerably as a result of contracting HIV.
She said there was always the spectre of AIDS, a dreadful disease, taking the life of the victim prematurely.
“It is not to be forgotten that by contracting AIDS, life expectancy is likely to be shortened prematurely.”
She said costs of medication were also “not inexpensive”.
On May 22, 2005, the victim, who was 17 years old, was involved in an accident and received a blood transfusion.
The victim was represented by V Vijaya Segaran and Norazali Nordin. Lawyer WSW Davidson represented KMC.
Crash victim infected with HIV gets RM896,000
Stay current - Follow FMT on WhatsApp, Google news and Telegram