When I woke up at 8:30 this morning, my husband wasn't home.
Knowing that he hadn't slept well the day before, I hoped that the hospital hadn't asked him to stay over for a double, or even for a couple hours. Night shift is exhausting all by itself.
8 minutes later, he came through the door and I heard the distinctive rustle of what I thought was a grocery bag.
Except it was a biohazard bag.
(though he had gone to the grocery store, for color safe bleach)
We both know that healthcare can be an incredibly dangerous field. Especially with my compromised immune system for the next 6-7 months, we've been hyper aware of the dangers around every corner.
We say it like it's a joke, that "everyone has herpeghonnaclamidyaids".
But I stopped smiling, upon finding out that my husband had Hep C bled onto his scrubs and shoes last night. For patient confidentiality, I won't say anything other than they knew what risks they were exposing the staff to.
They knew.
But now my dryer is full of bleach and detergent and scrubs and shoes, and the incident has been reported to human resources, and my husband is safe in bed, asleep. Contamination risk is very low, and I know from my microbiology classes that the transmission rate of Hep C is very low without blood to blood contact. I still did a scratch check, to make sure the patient hadn't inflicted any wounds on him during their attention grubbing episode of self harm.
I'm not going to touch the laundry until it's been through 3 bleach and detergent cycles, and then we're going to run the washer empty with bleach water.
I've never seen my husband come home from work so upset.
I've never seen him give up on a patient before.
But I've also never seen the after effects of someone intentionally using themselves as a biological hazard to try to infect other people before.
Health care is dangerous.
The scare is always a good reminder. Wear your gloves. Wear the other indicated personal protection equipment.
You never know what a patient is going to do.
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