Hospital LOST the blood of a pt I was infected with?!

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Monday I was flushing a pt's IV, it was hard to flush because there was a bit of blood in the tubing. I pulled back on the 10cc flush syringe and got a small blood return. When I tried to flush again I got splashed in my face and eyes with the saline/blood. I made an incident report, called the House Supervisor, and went to the ER to get my blood drawn, and I got a Post-exposure prophylaxis med (Combivir) The house Sup. was suppose to take care of drawing the pt's blood.

Well, I find out the pt's blood wasn't drawn until the next day. When I was working again my director assured me the pt's blood was drawn. The employee health nurse is the person who would let me know the results of my blood and the pt's blood.

Now, it's Friday, and no one has called me, so I call the Emp. health nurse and find out the hospital LOST THE PT's BLOOD. The pt has been DC days ago. How totally messed up is this? What am I suppose to do now? I was told my blood would be drawn a few times over the next yr. But still!! WTH !???!?!?? I am sick taking this HIV med (Combivir) and it makes me feel awful...nauseated... I have to take it BID for 30 days. Again W T H??? How can the hospital do this to me?

No one even had the decency to CALL ME. Not my director and not the employee health nurse. Just hell do I do now. :mad:

Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.
A lawyer? Really, I mean what would I ask for? It's like no one at the hospital cares. It took me 3 trips to the pharmacy and 5 calls to the workers comp. person in the hospital before I got the Combivir! I just...don't know what to do. I just started working here like 4 months ago, as a new grad. I just don't know....

Its your health and if you dont look out for yourself no one else will, The hospital doesn't seem to concerned about what has happened. I hope everything works out for you... I would probably not want to work there too much longer after what has happened :nurse:

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A letter from a lawyer might at least get the hospital to go get a blood sample from the pt.

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As in many such instances, it is highly likely that the "lost" specimen was "lost" on purpose. Should you press the issue you will find your employment to be problematic and perhaps not long-lived. This is how persons victimized at work often get treated.

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knowing that the patient was HIV pos or neg isn't going to change YOUR tx......because you don't know if that person was in the incubation period or not......that said, I do have to wonder how the hospital could have "lost" such an important specimen.....my thought is, that it was never done.

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Specializes in Spinal Cord injuries, Emergency+EMS.

face splash with blood stained fluid from a patient who is not known to have have a BBV ?

are you up to date with your Hep B ?

if so stop worrying unless they are known / high risk for Hep C or HIV ...

the risks of HIV infection are infitesimally small from splashes with dilute fluids - as HIV is not a robust virus in comparison to Hep C

I do have to wonder at the clinical appropriateness of PEP in this case unless the patient is known / suspected to have HIV

http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/documents/digitalasset/dh_089997.pdf

"The risk of acquiring HIV infection following occupational

exposure to HIV-infected blood is low. Epidemiological

studies have indicated that the average risk for HIV

transmission after percutaneous exposure to HIV-infected

blood in health care settings is about 3 per 1,000 injuries.

After a mucocutaneous exposure, the average risk is

estimated at less than 1 in 1,000. It has been considered

that there is no risk of HIV transmission where intact skin

is exposed to HIV-infected blood.

15. A case-control study conducted by the US Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention concluded that the

administration of zidovudine prophylaxis to health care

workers occupationally exposed to HIV was associated with

an 81% reduction in the risk for occupationally acquired

HIV infection (9). Four factors were associated with

increased risk of occupationally acquired HIV infection:8

HIV post-exposure prophylaxis

z Deep injury.

z Visible blood on the device which caused the injury.

z Injury with a needle which had been placed in a source

patient's artery or vein.

z Terminal HIV-related illness in the source patient.

"

and that's CDC figures driving that policy , not UK figures

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Specializes in Emergency & Trauma/Adult ICU.

I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, and I know that in every hospital I've worked in there is this lovely conversation with the lab on a regular basis:

Lab: "You didn't send a green top tube."

Me: "Yes, I did."

Lab: "Well, we don't have it. Send another specimen. Oh, and put the order in again because I'm cancelling this req."

If my coworkers & I didn't have this conversation weekly, I might be more inclined to suspect foul play in the OP's situation. But we do, so I don't.

I want to be there someday when the lab is remodeled and cabinets and countertop surfaces are removed, just to count the number of tubes that roll out from dark corners ... ;)

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Specializes in RN, Retired.

I've usually found my missing specimens still in the biohazard bag I sent them in.... in the trash next to the logger's desk. Sometimes I've found them off in aanother lab when for some reason they shared a sample and another lab got it first and never sent it back.

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