By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MD
There has been a breach in the strict infection prevention protocols followed by health care staff including doctors presumably by an Anesthetist. Nearly 250 patients in Western Australia might have been already infected with HIV, Hepatitis B and C and syphilis.
At present health officials are trying to trace these people. According to medical professionals the risk of such spread of blood-borne viruses is low but this incidence might signify a greater problem in the system. The anesthetist in question had been working at Port Hedland Hospital as well as two other hospitals in the Pilbara region over the past two years.
According to the statement made by medical director of WA Country Health Service, Dr Felicity Jeffries, the doctor in question is suspended until the investigation is complete. “An anesthetist who is performing a specific procedure using a short-term agent to put patients - basically sedating patients having colonoscopies and endoscopies - has been breaching infection control for that particular procedure…This breach of infection control has the potential of a very low risk of infection for patients,” she said. She revealed the appalling fact that he was performing a out of date procedure and said, “He has actually been reusing a secondary line…So if you have a line with fluid going into a patient, you often have other lines coming off that line, that secondary line, where other drugs are given to the patient. One of the secondary lines that is quite a distance away from the patient has been reused…Because there is the potential risk, no matter how low it is, we thought it was serious enough that we had to individually contact each patient….We don't know how this happened. I think it highlights that people working out in the country often don't have the peer review that other people have.” The nurses reportedly had brought this breach of protocol to the notice of the authorities but no action was taken.