Woman Who Got AIDS After Transfusion Sues : Litigation: Her claim accuses doctor, two blood banks and Fountain Valley Regional Hospital of negligence and malpractice.

Catalina Grigley went to the Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center in August, 1989, for heart surgery and a new lease on life. She walked out, she says, with a death sentence.

“They were supposed to make my life longer, but they made it shorter,” said the 49-year-old Orange County resident, who alleges she contracted the AIDS virus from a contaminated blood transfusion during her operation.

Grigley has filed a lawsuit against her doctor, the hospital and two blood banks, claiming negligence and medical malpractice. No trial date has been set.

Last month, in a similar lawsuit, an Orange County teen-ager who alleged that he was infected with the AIDS virus through tainted blood products lost his case against a West Coast pharmaceutical company.

The teen-ager, Channon Phipps, who suffers from hemophilia, had alleged that a UC Irvine College of Medicine physician had prescribed an unpasteurized coagulant

manufactured by Cutter Laboratories Inc. of Berkeley from 1983 to 1984. It was during that period, the lawsuit alleged, that Channon was infected by the tainted product.

An Orange County Superior Court judge, however, ruled that Channon’s suit was based on “insufficient evidence,” and granted the defendant’s motion declaring the case a “non-suit.”

In Grigley’s case, several months after her heart operation, she tested positive for the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Later, she said, she was diagnosed as having AIDS and has since been in and out of hospitals, suffering from bouts of nausea, shortness of breath, dizziness and various infections.

“I feel sick all the time and I can’t do much. I stay in the house most of the time,” said Grigley, who immigrated from the Philippines nearly 30 years ago.

One of her attorneys, Bonnie K. Lawley, said the infection could have been avoided if the blood banks “spent a couple of dollars” and performed an antigen test, which could have detected the AIDS virus even before antibodies were produced. Experts say there is a “window” period of up to two months from when a person is infected until the antibodies appear.

“It’s legal murder” because that test wasn’t performed, Lawley said.

Since 1985, all blood donations in the United States are required to be screened for AIDS antibodies, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not require antigen testing.

The tainted blood used in Grigley’s transfusion was supplied by the American Blood Institute in Los Angeles, according to Dr. Fredrick Axelrod, medical director of the blood bank. He said the blood bank had performed all the federally required tests and procedures “appropriately.”

“It’s a sad situation,” he said. “I feel very sorry for the patient.”

Axelrod said the tests did not detect the virus because the blood came from a newly infected donor whose antibodies were not developed.

Axelrod said that this was a rare occurrence. But, he added, receiving a blood transfusion “was never a zero percent risk” situation.

Officials at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center, who declined to comment on the case, said that they follow all the federal requirements for handling blood.

The donor, who was not considered a “high-risk” person for AIDS, gave the blood at the Oklahoma Blood Institute, Axelrod said.

The Oklahoma Blood Institute transferred the blood to the American Blood Institute, which in turn gave it to Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center. All three are co-defendants in the lawsuit, along with Grigley’s doctor, Naveen Dhar.

The infected blood was detected when the donor gave blood about three months later. That time, he tested HIV positive. Axelrod then traced the sample to the hospital and Grigley.

He called Grigley, informed her about the infected blood and told her to get tested.

Grigley said that she and her boyfriend of 3 1/2 years were tested. Hers came back positive and his negative. Doctors told her she had five to seven years to live, she said.

“I was very angry about what happened,” she said in an interview Thursday at her attorney’s office. Shortly after the tests, her boyfriend left her. “He said he was afraid to touch me.”

Since then, Grigley has moved in with a 23-year-old daughter.

“I just take it one day at a time now,” she said.

Grigley currently takes AZT--an anti-AIDS medication--but she said it’s not enough. “I hope they find a cure. . . . I want to live longer.”