"Baby sues hospital over negligence" 7 October 2014

A baby who was pricked by a city nurse using a cannula contaminated with her HIV positive blood has sought legal redress against the health facility where his mother had taken him to receive treatment. Two-year-old Mathew Mushabe, with the help of his mother, Ms Ruth Mushabe, filed a civil suit against Victoria Medical Centre located in Kampala before the High Court...In their complaint, they contend that on January 7, the hospital and its nurse, Rosemary Namubiru, owed a duty of care to the little boy but chose to breach it by neglecting to meet the standards of professional practice. The mother and her baby now want the High Court to find the healthy facility culpable of negligence to which they should be ordered to compensate them. This suit comes five months after Buganda Road Court convicted Namubiru of having gone against her professional ethics when she used a cannula that had pricked her index finger and used the same to prick the baby while administering treatment to him, putting his life at risk of contracting HIV. The 64-year-old nurse was accordingly sentenced to three years in prison by then Chief Magistrate Olive Kazaarwe...While finding the nurse guilty, the magistrate Kazaarwe held that the fact that she pricked herself with a cannula before suing the very canola on the baby was indicator of criminal negligence.