Recent reports suggest patients have been infected with HIV after having had an endoscopy as a common denominator combined with the use of unhygienic instruments, I find the fact that patients have been exposed to such a great health risk like HIV or hepatitis totally irresponsible.
Why do we have problems like this which we all know are preventable?? If only people followed the infection control protocol on how to udisinfect and sterilize equipment used in invasive procedures like endoscopy.
In the clinical setting I don’t know how a HIV positive patient can be ‘handed over’. In the UK where I worked previously, it is permitted to write in the handover sheet “High Risk” which means that the patient is HIV positive. The actual word HIV is not written in case somebody misplaces their handover sheet due to confidentiality issues. Here in Australia I don’t know if it is usual practice to record in the handover sheet that the patient is HIV positive or not?
- Do you have anyway of communicating when there is a risk of blood exposure from a HIV positive patient in your place of work?
- Do you think there is a risk of not recording anything on the handover sheet to warn us in case we need to take their blood or do cannulation for the patient?
- Do you think its fair that while preserving patient’s confidentiality our own safety is compromised?
- What can we do to protect ourselves and other allied health professionals from such a risk?
It’s good if we are working in the same unit and know from the start that a patient has HIV or Hepatitis but what if we don’t know and the person who handed the patient over forgets or did not know as well?
Don’t you think a simple warning like ‘high risk’ or ‘blood prick precaution’ or simply putting a ‘yellow’ word in the handover sheet instead of infectious will be enough to protect our health and those of others who are not yet infected?
What do you think? Any suggestions from the Department of Health?
