HIV!!!! N7M DAMAGES FROM EX-EMPLOYER

HIV person gets N7m damages from ex-employer

TWELVE years after a tortuous legal battle, Mrs. Georgina Ahamefule, whose employment was wrongfully terminated by her employer on account of testing positive to Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) finally got N7 million damages from her former employer.

A Lagos High Court awarded her N7 million as damages for her ordeal at the hands of her employer, Imperial Medical Centre and its Chief Medical Director, Dr Alex Molokwu, in 1995.

Ahamefule employed as an auxiliary nurse at the hospital in 1989 was dismissed from work, through a letter dated October 23, 1995 by the hospital.

In the letter, Molokwu explained that the hospital’s management could not compromise the facility or its patients by exposing them to risks associated with Georgina’s HIV-positive status.

She was earlier diagnosed as having HIV while she was pregnant in 1995 and the emotional and psychological trauma, that she suffered as a result of the news and the loss of her job contributed to a spontaneous miscarriage of her pregnancy.

Ahamefule was also said to be victimized, rejected, humiliated and put at a great risk when  Molokwu allegedly declined to carry out his own prescribed evacuation of the miscarried pregnancy on the ground of her HIV status.

This however elicited a court action filed by the Social and Economic Rights Action Centre (SERAC) against the hospital and Dr Molokwu on behalf of the victim in July 14, 2010.

Unfortunately, the unfairness suffered by Georgina did not stop at the hands of the hospital as then trial judge, Justice Caroline Olufawo of the Lagos High Court in 2001 barred Georgina from entering the courtroom because of her status.

Apart from that, Shamsudeen Aileru, a law clerk in the law offices of the defendants’ counsel, Professor Abraham Adesanya, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) was alleged to have committed perjury, when he deposed falsely to an affidavit on oath that Georgina had died in her hometown, despite that she is still alive and well. The matter is still pending at the Lagos High court, Ikeja in the people of Lagos state. Shamsudeen Aileru & Dr Alex Molokwu (ID/50C/2011.)

However, in the landmark judgment delivered by Justice Yetunde Idowu of the Lagos High Court, the court held that the purported termination of Georgina was illegal, unlawful and actuated by malice and extreme bad faith.