Does your healthcare facility hire employees with HIV or hepatitis

[Fig77]

Does your healthcare facility hire employees with HIV or hepatitis? Or is it a don't ask don't tell policy thing?

[DeLana_RN, BSN, RN]

I just started working at a large hospital. No one asked about hepatitis or HIV at Employee Health (and believe me, they wanted to know everything else). I know a few nurses who work there who are hep-positive; one works in the ICU. Employee Health knows about her status because she didn't respond to the HBV vaccine - that's when she found out she had been infected, without symptoms, probably since childhood.

So no, it should not be a problem.

DeLana

[DeLana_RN, BSN, RN]

and in OB, for years we used DeLee suction catheters on babies..the nurse was the suction, there was a trap that was supposed to catch fluid/mucus...only problem, trap didn't always work, and the nurse got a mouthful:no:

DeLana

[dulcemorena]

wow your facility tested you for HIV? Ive never heard of such a thing, I didnt even think it was legal for anyone to ask your HIV status besides your own physician. Thats crazy, its discrimination. I know of someone who is Hep B pos but I dont think she ever had a problem finding a job. Ive never been asked either in an interview and I dont see how any employer can really ask that. Yet there was a story aroud the area where a bunch of pts were infected with Hep C because a surg tech (who was an addict) passed it onto them, so it must be scary as an employer to hire people not knowing what they could possibly pass onto the patients, yet how can you turn a good employee away because of something that they cant help?

[D.R.A.]

While I can understand why a facility would want to know, I do find it legally on the line for them to ask. I am a nursing student (start in Jan) and someone I know, who has HSV2 choose not to deliver her baby in the county where she will become employed when she graduates nursing school b/c she felt they wouldn't hire her if they saw this in her hospital medical record. Patients, on the other hand, are required to agree to mandatory testing before being treated by a facility, should an exposure to blood/body fluid/needle stick occur, at least at most facilities in my area.

[MikeyBSN]

I know there have been several cases in which an employer fired an HIV positive health care worker and, if I remember correctly, states courts found it illegal in every case. I'm not sure about Hep-C, but it would likely violate federal law as discrimination due to disability.

[Fig77]

Employer shouldn't care about if employee has HIV or hepatitis. It should be the responsibility of State Board of Nursing who executes licences for nurses to make sure or instill the universal healthcare's protective measurement while doing cares with integrity. Integrity with using PPE is what schools should work on for the student. I know a lot of nurses who have no integrity with doing the proper treatments or three checks with med administration. These nurses are liability for serious infections if they got HIV or hepatitis.

[island40]

They can't ask but as soon as you file your Family or Medical Leave Act (FMLA) forms everyone knows.

[island40]

Problem is also proving that they did not hire you because of your illness. I have IBD a chronic illness that has caused me to miss work sometimes for 6 months or more. When a prospective employer looks at my work record they always ask why I left a job and what I did during the jobless times. Without lying it is difficult to explain these lapses in work and not disclose my illness. Difficult to tell if they decided to not hire me because of my illness or something else.

[diane227, LPN, RN]

In most hospitals it depends on what area you are going to work in. Some places won't know unless you tell them. They do not test people for HIV so unless you tell them, they won't know. Most hospitals have asked me about hepatitis however because they want us to have the vaccine we we are not hep C positive.