Case study 4: Occupational health and safety / infection control

You are the newly appointed manager of a dental surgery. You notice that a patient who was due for an examination at 1pm is still in the waiting area at the end of the day. The receptionist explains to you in the waiting room that their appointment had to be postponed until the end of the day due to their hep C status. As the patient leaves you find both the receptionist and dental nurse scrubbing down the treatment room and waiting area with disinfectant. What do you do?

Issues for discussion

  1. While standard infection control guidelines prevent transmission occurring between patients, many people living with hepatitis C report having their appointments moved to the end of the day and experiencing differential treatment.
  2. Many people living with hepatitis C avoid dental treatment or medical care due to discriminatory or intolerant practices when approaching these services. Reluctance to access such services can create further health complexities.
  3. Using additional precautions and ‘extra’ infection control measures where they are not required sends an erroneous message to consumers that standard precautions are not efficient or are substandard therefore the basic principle of standard precautions is to treat all blood as potentially infectious.

Client issues

  1. The patient has had had to wait all afternoon in the surgery and may feel stigmatised, when there is no chance of cross-infection when standard precautions are adhered to.
  2. The persons hepatitis C status was disclosed in front of strangers, which is a breach of their privacy and grounds for a complaint can be made against the surgery.
  3. Seeing staff scrubbing down general areas may reinforce stigmatised images surrounding hepatitis C in a social setting, and sends a wrong message surrounding the level of risk of transmission.
  4. Discriminatory treatment may impact upon the person’s access to these services in the future.

Organisational issues