A tele-recruiter of the South African National Blood Service (SANBS) has been suspended after telling a blood donor she was HIV-positive as a joke, The Witness reported on Thursday.
Its website said the culprit said he did this to ”test her reaction”.
The donor, a 19-year-old student, said: ”It was a very cruel joke. HIV/Aids is a serious matter that one cannot joke about.”
She said the recruiter, a young Afrikaans man, phoned her on her mother’s cellphone on Tuesday.
”He said it was the blood bank and he had very bad news: I was HIV positive,” she said.
”I was utterly shocked and burst into tears, and said it couldn’t be true. Then he said it wasn’t really true, he just wanted to see how I’d react if he said something like that.”
The SANBS’s Nicolette Duda said the matter was regarded in a serious light and a disciplinary probe was under way. – Sapa