PUBLIC health nurses are up in arms after it emerged that one of their members has run the risk of being infected by an AIDS patient during surgery earlier this week.
The incident took place at the Nicosia general hospital. According to Giorgos Flourentzos, head of the Nurses Union, the 42-year-old AIDS patient came in late on Sunday night complaining of acute abdominal pain. During admission, the designated doctor took down the patient’s medical history, as per standard procedure. At no time did the patient mention that he suffered from any infectious disease, despite being specifically being asked about this. As a result he was given a clean bill of health.
On Monday morning staff at the hospital took a blood sample from the patient. But before the full test results were in, the patient had to be rushed to surgery at about 1am on Tuesday, said Flourentzos.
During surgery, a young female nurse accidentally received a cut on the hand from a sharp surgical instrument.
The following morning, Wednesday, the patient’s blood test results revealed he was suffering from AIDS. It subsequently emerged that the patient had been receiving treatment for AIDS at a private clinic in Larnaca – a fact that medical staff at Nicosia general had also been unaware of.
Alarmed, the nurse who took part in the operation has herself taken an HIV test, the results of which are pending.
“At no point did the patient inform anyone that he had AIDS – which was a serious obligation on his part – not even as he was being taken in for surgery,” Flourentzos said.
“If the staff had known about the AIDS, they would have taken a hundred times more precautions than normal,” he added. “Just think of it: this young lady, who was trying to save the man’s life on the operating table, now has to endure all this anxiety during the Holy Week. Our prayers are with her.”
Flourentzos said he would be meeting with the leadership of the Health Ministry to discuss ways on how to afford medical staff a safer working environment, but did not elaborate.
He said staff at Nicosia general had no way of finding out about the AIDS patient’s condition. Public hospitals do not share medical information with private clinics unless a patient is directly referred from one institution to another, he told the Mail. And given that this was an emergency, doctors could not afford to wait until the full blood test results were in.
“In this case, he came in to Nicosia general all on his own, without any documentation, and no family members showed up at any time. We later learned that after the operation, which went well, he went back to the private clinic to continue his AIDS treatment.”
