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Expectant mum has 30 hours of ‘HIV’ hell...

by Kirsty Elleray
2/ 7/2008

AN expectant mum from Portwood was wrongly told she had the HIV virus in a hospital mix-up.

A botched test result from Stepping Hill Hospital took Beth Jackson to the brink of despair.

But after a nightmare 30 hours for the 24-year-old and her fiance Sean Gormley, Beth was told the results were wrong – and that she didn’t have the HIV virus after all.

Her ordeal began when she was two months into her pregnancy and went to her GP for routine blood tests. Two days later she received the devastating news she was HIV-positive.

Beth said: "Words cannot do justice to how I felt at that moment. The stress nearly killed me. I didn’t want to bring a baby into the world if I didn’t know how long I had to live, or if it might have HIV. Me and Sean were both in tears – in a total state of shock. All of a sudden the world had fallen in on us. I couldn’t get my head around it. We racked our brains as to how it could be I was HIV-positive."

The couple faced agonising talks on whether one had cheated on the other before Beth got a second test and an appointment with a specialist HIV midwife.

After 30 hours of worry Beth learned she had been the victim of a mistake. Her GP rang and told her the second test, which was analysed at Manchester Royal Infirmary, revealed she did NOT have the virus.

Despite the trauma, Beth bears no grudge against Stepping Hill Hospital, where she had successful laser surgery for a condition which threatened to leave her infertile.

Beth, who gave birth to healthy baby boy Sam, said: "When I found out it was a mistake my relief quickly turned into anger at what I had been through. But if it hadn’t been for Stepping Hill I wouldn’t have been able to get pregnant and have a baby in the first place.The people at Stepping Hill did a lot of good for me so I’m not angry at the hospital as a whole, just certain individuals."

A hospital spokesman said Stepping Hill had apologised to Beth.

The HIV virus can lead to AIDS, which attacks the immune system leaving the body vulnerable to infection. People can become infected by unprotected sex, contaminated needles, breast milk, transmission from an infected mother to her baby at delivery, and blood transfusions from a contaminated, unscreened supply.

The chance of catching it from a blood transfusion is extremely slim.