You gotta stay sharp

This week I celebrated my 28th birthday.

This week I was accidentally stabbed with a needle contaminated with the blood of a patient with Hepatitis B.

It was all going so well, I thought. The patient had already been screened for HIV and venereal disease and she was in the clear. What are the chances that she would be positive for Hepatitis B?

Well, 100% as it turned out.

I wasn't terribly upset at first. It was a small nick that didn't bleed much, though it surprised me enough that I yelled in the operating theatre. Everybody froze when they realised what had happened. My colleague felt bad for accidentally stabbing me with the suture needle. As I pointed out, it was an accident. I was double-gloved and we were all following the correct procedures, so it was unfortunate that I got a needlestick injury.

What pissed me off was the attitude of the staff when I was trying to get all the various forms filled out and sent off to the correct persons. Their primary concern seemed to be that I was being a pain for fucking up their pristine no critical incidents status. Because they were on duty when the accident happen, their names were on the incident report, but that was it - just their names. I don't know why they were making such a big fuss about it. Staff here have such a fear of being asked for their names. It's not as if any of them were going to be hauled up for questioning for what was in fact an ACCIDENT. I was the one who got the needlestick injury. If anyone needs to be worried about anything, it's fucking me! You lot can go screw your bloody statistics, you fucking cows!

Hopefully, things will work out fine. I had all my vacinations done prior to going to medical school and my last antibody check in 2004 showed I had immunity to Hepatitis B. Still, I have several months of screening to look forward to since one negative result in HIV and Hepatitis B tests does not mean you are in the clear.

I just hope that that lady doesn't have some other funky disease that hasn't been screened for.

Comments

Lily G said…

Oh dear. Blardy hell. Hope all is well.

Hope you are enjoying the new job and all anyway.

Happy belated btw:)

18 November, 2007 13:05

Anonymous said…

DUDE!!!
I hope you shake them up, those statistics fearing fools!

18 November, 2007 23:35

Kere said…

Thanks Lily. Am doing much better now. Blood results so far look promising.

Bad thing is that you can't get on the nurses' bad side. They gang up on you. No one likes the person who stirs up shit.

31 January, 2008 09:14

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