Never told of the diagnosis.
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https://www.hivplusmag.com/news/2020/9/15/navy-vet-sues-va-says-it-never-told-him-hiv-diagnosis
A U.S. Navy veteran is suing the Department of Veterans Affairs because he tested positive for HIV at a V.A. clinic in 1995 — but the V.A., which is part of the federal government, never told him.
The vet, identified only as John Doe in the suit, said he progressed to an AIDS diagnosis because he hadn’t been treated early for the virus, the Associated Press reports. “The treatment he’s getting now is effective, but he’s had essentially 25 years of wear and tear for having no treatment,” his lawyer, Chad McGowan, told the AP.
Doe, a South Carolina resident, received the HIV test 25 years ago as part of routine testing at a V.A. medical center in Columbia, S.C. He had been classified as disabled due to injuries in a 1976 shipwreck and post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from that, and he received his health care through the V.A.
The doctor who ordered the testing didn’t inform Doe of his HIV diagnosis, although V.A. policy required such disclosure, nor did a nurse-practitioner who noted the test results in a 2014 memo, according to the suit, filed last week in federal court. Another doctor Doe saw in 2015 asked him if he knew he was HIV-positive, but this doctor still didn’t diagnose him as such.
Finally, in 2018, Doe saw a non-V.A. doctor at Maimonides Medical Center in New York City, due to a health emergency. The doctor did make a definitive diagnosis that Doe was HIV-positive and had developed AIDS, and Doe went on antiretroviral treatment.
