RCN Response To Libya Death Sentence Verdict For Nurses In HIV Case

Main Category: Litigation / Medical Malpractice
Also Included In: Nursing / Midwifery;  HIV / AIDS
Article Date: 19 Dec 2006 - 9:00 PDT

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Alison Kitson, Executive Director Nursing at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said:

"We are deeply saddened to hear of the deaths of some of the infected Libyan children, and our thoughts are with their families and the other children suffering from this disease."

However, the RCN is dismayed at the Libyan court’s verdict to sentence the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death for the alleged infection of the Libyan children with HIV.

“DNA analysis by an international team of experts published by Nature provides a strong case for the innocence of the six medical workers. The evidence clearly shows that the strain of HIV with which the children have been infected was already present and spreading locally in the mid-1990s, a long time before the doctor and nurses arrived in Libya in 1998.

“It is an outrage that these nurses have been imprisoned for seven years without firm evidence of their guilt. Nursing is a caring profession, and problems such as the infection of these children are usually due to a failure in the system rather than the malpractice of individual health workers. This latest development is deeply disturbing and we are calling on the Libyan court to reconsider its verdict.”

In 1999, 19 Bulgarian health workers including nurses were arrested at Benghazi hospital in Libya after an outbreak of HIV/Aids among children. The following year five Bulgarian women nurses and a Bulgarian male doctor went to trial along with a Palestinian doctor

Since 1999 - seven years - the medics have been in detention. During this time 52 of the 426 infected children have died of Aids.

In 2004 the doctor and nurses were sentenced to death, but the Supreme Court quashed the ruling after protests over the fairness of the trial.

Defence lawyers said the defendants would appeal against the new verdict, expected to be the final appeal allowed under Libyan law.

Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is the voice of nursing across the UK and is the largest professional union of nursing staff in the world. The RCN promotes the interest of nurses and patients on a wide range of issues and helps shape healthcare policy by working closely with the UK Government and other national and international institutions, trade unions, professional bodies and voluntary organisations.

http://www.rcn.org.uk