HIV Positive Nurses

[JeepDudeRN]

Hello Everyone,

I am an RN student , and I am doing a paper on HIV. I was hoping a few of you, or many, wouldnt mind commenting. Do you know another nurse with HIV? How does it effect staff issues, patient care, etc. Is there an extreme amount of bias, where Nurses with HIV are concerned? Have you witnessed any discrimination? How do hospitals generally feel about HIV positive caregivers? Have you cared for HIV positive patients? How did it make you feel? And please, please, please, if you are going to be rude please do not respond. I am trying to take a fact/opinion based approach, kind of like a poll. I am not interested in one's sexuality or mode of transmission. If anyone feels like commenting, it would be welcomed. Thank you so much in advance!

[samirish]

In 1999 I was drawing my own labs on an HIV infected patient and he became physically aggressive. The needle slipped and I was stuck. Talk about scary times! I underwent blood work for 10 years. In the psych field, we have several HIV positive patients. 9 times out of 10, we won't know unless the patient is upfront about their illness. I have never (that I know of) worked with an HIV infected nurse.

God that sounds like a nightmare situation! Glad you ended up being alright.

[ZippyGBR, BSN, RN]

in terms of working in a direct care role , the risks are minimal unless you are doing what is referred to as exposure prone procedures ... these are things like scrubside in operating theatres or working on a delivery suite , i'm not sure if suturing counts, but venepuncture etc does not .

[regularRN]

Fortunately, HIV has become a chronic illness due to HAART.

As an HIV- RN, I am more than comfortable caring for HIV+ patients. If I were a pt myself I would be happy to be cared for by an HIV+ RN - standard precautions, the precautions we implement with each and every one of our pts regardless of HIV status, is a universal standard that protects both uninfected from contracting the virus and the infected from transmitting it.

[audiothologist]

I've worked with patient with AIDS and cancer.... to tell you the truth the cancer scared me more, not because I would cartch it but becuase cancer scares me. I only care if a patient has AIDS or HIV if I come in unprotected contact with their body fluids. AIDS to me is no worse then any other life long disorder, people now live normal lives with a diagnosis.

TB does scare me but I've treated patients w/ it w/o knowing. Heck one time I walked into a small streatment room in an urgent care area (room was 4 by 12) and started drawing a pts blood and as I was finishing the nurse ran in, pulled me out of the room and told me "leave the door open till we can find a negative pressure room, they came up positive for TB." and no I have never been positive.

[Thujone]

I haven't worked with anyone with HIV that I know of, but I don't see how it would be a problem. The only way they could spread it to a patient would be if they had an oozing gash of blood that just happened to flow directly into the patients veins, not to mention that HIV dies upon contact with air. The only other method of spreading it would be the a HIV+ nurse and patient having sex which is illegal for the HIV+ person to do unless they inform their partner of their status. And besides, with the drugs out there today people can live a normal life span with HIV and maintain a very low viral load AND a CD4 count above 200 which leaves their immune system within normal limits.

[MrChicagoRN, RN]

I've known two HIV+ RN. Both excellent nurses, no issues

You can't tell by looking at them. It's not the hospitals or anyone else's business.

[cacentralvalley]

About 15 years ago my uncle died from AIDS. He didn't want to be in a hospital so he was able to stay home and die with family. We did enlist the help from a home health care nurse that would come by everyday for about an hour and she was great; she was also HIV positive.

She was open with sharing her status with us. She was a great nurse!!!!! She was always very professional, caring, and friendly; she seemed more as a friend to us rather than "Uncle Tad's nurse is here". I don't know if things would've been different for her if she worked at a hospital (as far as how others would have reacted) but she was fantastic.

She had to 'train' some of my family members that gave my uncle daily care and everyone felt comfortable around her; no issues there.

[xtxrn, ASN, RN]

I took care of AIDs patients back in the mid 80s, when it was first identified as a problem. We didn't even use gloves routinely then; there was a box of them at the nurses' station. Those guys (almost all were men) were dumped by their families most of the time, and their friends didn't want to be near them- so they became part of the gang :) Those guys would be in the hospital sometimes for months. There was one family who did stick by their son- and it was a horrible death. Took the doc forever to write the DNR even though the family wanted nothing more done after the guy had a stroke.

When I worked drug/alcohol rehab, an admit was crying, and his tears got into my eyes - totally unintentional. I rinsed my eyes for about 10 minutes; had lab work, no medications, and so far, that hasn't been an issue :)

Lots of sad stories.

I did work with a guy who ended up having AIDS, and dying. He was great to work with, gave me a ride (I didn't have a car the first 8 months I lived on my own), and was basically a nice guy :) I'd gone to work somewhere else before he got sick, but i saw his obit, and talked to someone who knew that he died from AIDS. He lived in my apartment complex for a while- and it was obvious something was wrong- he was getting too scrawny.