[CUPE healthcare list] HIV exposure for health care workers

["Heather Farrow" <hfarrow@cupe.ca>]

National Post (August 17, 2006)
Survey suggests high rate of HIV exposure for health-care workers
By Tom Blackwell
 
TORONTO - Far more Canadian health-care workers than previously thought have been infected by HIV, a "tragedy" that urgently needs addressing with better infection-control procedures and more research, Ontario scientists are reporting.
 
Hundreds of health-care workers have lost time from work after contracting HIV on the job "greatly" exceeding any official government estimates, according to study results presented at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto this week.
 
A Public Health Agency official said Wednesday the government has reports of only three HIV-infected workers.
 
One nursing group expressed amazement at the University of Western Ontario findings, saying that, if true, they suggest many medical staff are hiding the fact they are HIV-positive and potentially endangering patients.
 
"The main importance of this study is basically that there is a large under-estimate of occupationally acquired HIV infection," said Gillian McCarthy, the epidemiology professor at Western's school of dentistry who spearheaded the research.
 
"This is a real tragedy for any health-care worker to get infected."
 
She speculated that workers are not reporting exposure to the virus because they fear how their licensing bodies will react if they later test positive themselves.
 
But much of the exposure to HIV-containing blood that resulted in infection in the first place could have been prevented with good infection-control, said McCarthy. Despite SARS and other threats, such protective measures are often ignored, she said.
 
The Western group's conclusions are worrisome, said Joan Lesmond, past president of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario.
 
"I was really amazed by these results E It really disturbs me greatly," said Lesmond, head nurse at Casey House, a Toronto hospice for AIDS patients.
 
"If health-care workers are not reporting, they are putting themselves at risk and putting other patients at risk as well."
 
Nurses are obliged to immediately obtain preventive treatment if they are exposed, and report to authorities if they test positive, she said.
 
Meanwhile, other research presented by the Western scientists Wednesday indicates about 10 per cent of nurses and dental hygienists would refuse to treat a patient with HIV or AIDS.
 
There is virtually no data on how many health-care workers might be infected with the virus, McCarthy's presentation to the conference said.
 
The Western researchers conducted confidential mail-in surveys of 22,000 dentists, dental hygienists, surgeons and nurses over the last several years.
 
The responses suggested that more than eight per cent of nurses had at some point been exposed to patient blood containing HIV, either through a cut or needle-stick or blood splashing into their eyes, nose or mouth.
 
Close to one in 100 surgeons reported being exposed to HIV blood within the previous year, and about one in 200 dental hygienists and dentists. Previous research suggests that 0.3 per cent of those would actually contract the virus, meaning there had been dozens of infections at the time the surveys were conducted.
 



Heather Farrow, M.A.
Health Care Research Assistant
Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)
National Office
21 Florence St.
Ottawa, ON K2P 0W6
hfarrow@cupe.ca
www.cupe.ca
Fax: 613-237-5508
Tel: 613-237-1590, ext. 320