Procedures reviewed after child became at risk of HIV due to botched vaccination
Posted October 29, 2014 11:49 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A child in Fort St. James is at risk of contracting HIV after an accident while getting vaccinated by a nurse living with the disease. The six-year-old flinched while getting her booster shot. The needle pricked the girl and the nurse, causing their blood to mix.
Gavin Wilson with Vancouver Coastal Health says this case is extremely rare. He tells us the authority can’t hire or not hire based on someone’s HIV status. “Nurses or any other health care workers may have blood borne disease, blood borne pathogen such as HIV, or Hep C, there’s no discrimination against them being employed as health care workers.”
He says he can see why some would be concerned but is reassuring people there is proper protocol to prevent the transmission of diseases. “Well, I can understand there may be some concerns but I think the public needs to be reassured that there are many processes and procedures in place to prevent this kind of thing from happening and as I’ve explained its very, very rare.”
He adds there have been only four cases where HIV was transmitted from a worker to a patient and they are all outside of Canada.
Cynthia Johansen with the College of Registered Nurses of BC says nurses with diseases have specific guidelines.
“The standard that the college has in place requires nurses to work with an expert in blood borne pathogens to determine what restriction on practice they need to have and our requirement is that they follow that advice, and our expectation is that they do follow them. In cases when it’s not being followed our responsibility is to investigate and determine how to then resolve the concern or the complaint.”
She tells us the college is investigating the case and checking to see if standards were breached.
