Just like every other day of my antenatal clinic posting, I watch pregnant women with different bump sizes push past the door to get their antenatal laboratory investigations done by me.
She came in like others did, an average height, fair skinned woman who seemed comfortable in her pregnancy, unlike some others with a constant can’t-wait-to-deliver look.
She presented her request sheet and I noted that she was 7 months pregnant, first pregnancy, and was referred from another hospital where she had just registered for antenatal.
“How can you register for antenatal at 7 months and it’s even your first pregnancy?” I asked.
World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that pregnant women should have their first contact in the first 12 weeks of gestation so, I was quite alarmed she had held back for so long.
She said she had registered for antenatal at another hospital and tested positive for HIV. She was then referred to our hospital for a confirmation and subsequent follow up. My eyes lit up with caution and like every other health professional who gets to deal with body fluid samples of a known HIV patient, I knew I had to be very careful.
As part of the protocol, we always request new antenatal attendees to come with their husbands so we can run the baseline tests on them and counsel where necessary. I took her blood sample and asked her to call her husband.
After running the first set of tests and she was positive to HIV and negative to others, I ran the HIV test again with the two confirmatory kits and they both read positive as well. I sent her results to the counselors at the Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission (PMTCT) center and her samples to the main HIV laboratory for further confirmation. While we awaited her husband’s arrival, her results were disclosed to her and she broke down in tears as her once beautiful, smiling face reddened.
She was being counselled when her husband arrived so she quickly wiped her tears and tried to look normal. We told the husband that observing protocols, we would have to take his blood sample for some tests. A very jolly business man, he obliged.
While I was running his tests, the counselors engaged him in family conversations and about HIV. He told us how his wife has recently been avoiding him because he doesn’t allow her rest despite her pregnancy. He said nothing could separate him from his wife, that marriage is supposed to be for better for worse, and even HIV would not separate them. We all hoped he meant it because people tend to change when they receive sour news.
His test result came out negative and we knew we had to approach the situation with more caution. We disclosed his result to him and he asked about his wife’s result. We told him it wasn’t ready and he was confused how his own was ready and his wife’s wasn’t despite she had been here long before him.
The PMTCT counselors went ahead to counsel him while we waited for his wife’s result from the main laboratory. The final confirmatory result came in positive and this was disclosed to him.
Ghen…ghen!
Dear readers, what do you think about this situation? Do you think the wife had an affair? If no, is there any way she could prove her innocence?
Drop your comments in the comment box and make sure to follow my blog right after that.The conversation continues in my next blog post.
Stay safe!
Maureen
Medtrix 