Risk of exposure with child birth

Sassafras

Sassafras

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I assisted with a birth a few days ago and amniotic fluid sprayed all over me before we realized birth was impending. Ordinairily I would not beconcerned with this if it simply landed on my clothing or skin but some landed in my eye. Baby required help and we were tied up in the hospital for a while before I could shower in the decon room. My infectious control officer tells me that the hospital will call if there is anything Exposure related to worry about. But will they call if they did not know I wasexposed? I'm just concerned that I should be pursuing this further and no one seems concerned. Am I over reacting? I know risk is low but with it comingin contact with my mucous membranes I'm just a tad freaked. Am I within my rights to call the hospital and ask or will they simply say they can't tell me due to hipaa? Any I sight is appreciated.
 
Sam Adams said:
Did you fill out your company /dept's exposure report form?
Click to expand...

Second that.

Get that filled out ASAP. Yesterday if possible. If they find out you were exposed and didn't file one of those for two weeks , they will not be happy.

I injured my eyeball on the job and didn't file for almost a week I think. The boss told me that often the agencies insurance can turn down payment if you don't file in a timely manner. I'm guessing the same sort of stuff could happen with exposure reports.
 
Sam Adams said:
Did you fill out your company /dept's exposure report form?
Click to expand...

I did report it both verbally and via paper report as soon as my trip sheet was done. Both of which were done before I left the station that night.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
As long as you filled out the EXPOSURE report and not an incident report....

Your D.I.C.O. (makes me giggle every time) should have received it and passed it on to the hospital where it would have wound up in the pt's chart. From there someone from the hospital should inform the pt of the incident and request bloods be drawn (they can refuse). If all goes well your D.I.C.O. will get the results and pass them on to you.

Did the hospital talk to you about the exposure/ offer you prophylactic meds?
 
That's just it. I don't think the hospital even knows. It was a traumatic birth. Baby fine now but things were scarey for a bit. Someone knew because I asked for clean scrubs and a decon room but no one official I suspect. I spoke with our infectious control director the next day and she said the hospital will automatically contact the unit if there is anything to worry about. As of yesterday my exposure paper was still in the exposure box so I doubt anything has been done. I contacted my pcp today and he put some of my concerns to rest but all I have been given thus far is a verbal "if you REALLY feel the need we can set you up with prophylactics but I don't think you need to worry". So I'm sitting here confused as to what my next step should even be. I've been exposed to hepA and received immunoglobulins for that years ago. Just had my hepB titers drawn so those two I'm not as concerned about. It just seems as though the actual incident, which was pretty huge at the time has overshadowed the exposure and I'm left going "huh?". As a new EMT I'm not sure what to freak about and what not to yet so I hunted down this site to ask some questions.
 
No. It happened too fast. Right when I went to grab the ppe her water broke explosively. Mom other than being in pain was not exhibiting signs of labor and we thought we had a different, more serious issue on our hands. Lesson learned that pregnant women are unpredictable. Sadly lesson learned at my expense.
 
That was my question. Should I be that concerned about it that I'm banging down her door? This unit is a volunteer unit. I'm assuming that's why it is so lax, but my main question is that of "am I legitimate with my concern or over reacting?" I'm clicking your link now. Thanks.
 
Sassafras said:
That was my question. "am I legitimate with my concern or over reacting?"
Click to expand...

You are absolutely legit!

You have the right to make a formal request to the Hospital (preferably to the patient's Attending Physician) for notification of any communicable diseases that the infant may have. You have been exposed. You can approach a Hospital Administrator for help if the Company won't back you.

You should have to go no further than your sponsoring organization. If they're not there for you, go to the top.
 
This is serious.

Please make sure you fill out a formal exposure report, not just a run report. The hospital has someone that is in charge of handling these issues, no matter how small it is, and they should follow up with both you and the mother. The hospital most likely ran lots of its own tests, and you're going to want to know if you mother or infant had a communicable disease.

If I were you I'd go to your supervisor, explain the situation, and then go to the hospital to speak to someone in charge.
 
I must not be explaining myself properly as I have filled out both a report on the run AND an exposure form and I have spoken with the infectious control officer. I've also mentioned it to our chief. If I were to call the hospital mom and baby have probably been discharged by now, and I am out of luck at obtaining blood work if they did not run labs. I can't go into detail on such a public forum, but I have reason to believe mom refused any labs or treatment. I would not know who to even contact at the hospital. Am I going outside of proper channels by calling the hospital? Is it too late to even start prophylactics at this point? (What I've read is they should be started between 2-4 hours post exposure and it's been almost 72 now). It's obvious my unit is awaiting some magical phone call from the hospital and they have flat out told me they believe they would automatically call the unit if they found anything out and suspect the baby was tested, but I'm genuinely confused as to why they didn't call the hospital directly. I called a friend who used to work for that particular hospital today in L&D and was told they automatically call anyone who had patient contact if something comes up on the blood work, but do I really want to leave that to chance? I think I'm getting more confused right now and my brain is going to mush.
 
:ph34r: dibs on EMT gear





dont' worry to much.... if we always get excited by this stuff, it would eat us alive..
 
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