We all Know what we are supposed to do, what is safe and what is right but sometimes those lines get blurred and we don't think before we act, especially if there is an infant involved.
The other day a woman WALKED into the waiting with a limp 6 week old infant in her arms. The first nurse to reach him observed the infant was not breathing, yelled for help and immediately started mouth to mouth.
Now if that had been an adult all of us would have screamed for help and opened the airway while waiting for an ambu bag to arrive. This however was a tinny tiny baby so the nurse started mouth to mouth and ran back to the code room.
I guess most of you can figure where I'm going with this. After we coded this infant for a very long time and were unsuccessful we called the code. Upon telling the "mother" (who was in the room the whole time but didn't seem the least bit concerned or upset) she informed us that she was only a foster mother and she had only received the baby yesterday but she hadn't expected him to die so quickly. That of course perked every one up because we had been yelling questions at her the whole time and had no idea the child was sick... The woman's response was "Oh, he wasn't sick but he had AIDS"
That was a wake up call none of us expected. As professionals we are all aware of the dangers around us but before this I never really associated those dangers with a 6 week old infant. Until this time it would have almost seem to be inhuman to pick that child up and run, not doing resus until you got that infant ambu bag (even though we were all taught differently at some point in time). Now we all know better. Most of us would have expected a caregiver to tell us immediately about the childs condition but apparently there are some who really don't think (or care) about others safety. The "mothers" behavior probably should have clue'd us in but nobody was really paying attention at that time. We saw all this in hindsight.
We have a good exposure plan at our hospital and the nurse was treated quickly and efficiently but there is still that little black cloud that has everyone thinking, whats happening to our world.
Sorry I got carried away but I wouldn't want any other medical professional to make the same mistake my co-worker made (and had it been me I also would have made). Just be careful out there, many dangers hide well.
