Photo Credit PHIL (Public Health Image Library)
# 7607
A topic we’ve touched on a number of times before (see EID Journal: Nosocomial Transmission Of 2009 H1N1 & A Hospital Is No Place For A Sick Person) is the carriage and transmission of respiratory viruses by healthcare workers to patients.
Today, Dr. Ian Mackay takes a look at a study on more than 300 ill and asymptomatic HCWs that screened them for a variety of respiratory viruses. Follow the link below to read the intriguing findings:
Healthcare workers may stay on the job when ill and can be shedding viral RNA...
Tuesday, 27 August 2013
The asymptomatic carriage and shedding of viruses comes as less than a complete surprise, as we’ve seen evidence of this in the past (see The Very Common Cold, PLoS One: Influenza Viral Shedding & Asymptomatic Infections).
But as Ian points out, the more they test the more we learn.
One of the revelations that came out of CIDRAP’s 2009 H1N1 conference in Minneapolis (see CIDRAP On Business’s Biggest Concern) was group polling that showed that Hospitals were among the least likely to make it easy for employees to stay home if they were sick.
As a paramedic, I know that my colleagues and I worked `sick’ often, as I wrote back in 2009:
EMT’s and paramedics were a scarce resource, and since everyone was working at least a 56-hour-week . . . trying to find someone to fill a shift was a major hassle.
So we worked with colds, with the flu, with aching backs, and Lord knows what else . . . because the system required it. And there were real (unwritten) punitive downsides to calling in sick.
Thirty years later, it appears that many HCWs are still penalized if they are unwilling to work `sick’. Sick leave for HCWs often comes out of an accrued PTO (Paid Time Off) account which combines vacation, holiday, and sick time off.
Workers accrue hours based on shifts worked, and their seniority.
Employees who haven’t sufficient hours `banked’ (or part-time workers who aren’t usually enrolled in PTO plans), must take unpaid leave if they fall ill.
Live polling of the attendees at the 2009 CIDRAP conference indicated that industries other than Health Care, such as manufacturing, were more likely to give employees paid time off for the flu and for taking care of sick family members.
Obviously, working `sick’ is a risk to both patients and colleagues alike.
It is a sad commentary that those who are most likely to get sick `in the line of duty’ are among the least likely to enjoy a liberal paid sick leave policy.
