Needle-stick injuries and surgery

[songs06]

there are some stuff on my mind lately. i know there is still not many HIV positive people in turkey, so doctors are still pretty ignorant about the issue. especially HIV positive people are having problem about finding someone to do their small surgeries and even hard to find dentist. and new electronic system, every doctor can see you HIV status from the computer and every doctor have the right to choose patient as well. (if it is not an emergency situation.) most of the doctors afraid of infection so they might lose their job, especially surgeons...

so what do you think about this situation?

first: i ve read in microbiology text book the chance to get infected from a needstick injury from HIV positive patient is %0.3
so what is the odd if the patient has UD viral load level. it is low chance i guess. i searched some articles but couldn't find anything about this topic. everyone agrees the chance is much lower but there isn't any number at all.

second: how is the situation with surgeons in other countries? do you also have problems about finding any doctor or dentists? do we really need more HIV patients to get doctors relaxed about topic?

[Miss Philicia]

At one point last year I had surgery three times and a colonoscopy, 3 different doctors. None had any qualms about HIV.

Think of it this way -- if someone rolls into the emergency room with multiple gun shot wounds do they know if the patient is HIV+ or not? A proper surgeon should know how to consider every patient as potentially having HIV.

[songs06]

i also agree. even though tests are accurate, there is still some of false negativeness (in the acute period) so there is risk always so every surgeon should protect himself no matter what his/her patients hiv status is. but in turkey, before surgeries, they do all the hepatitis and hiv markers. and if you refuse, doctor also refuse to do your surgery. (but it is legal obligation to do if it is a emergency.)

i hope we have less ignorant and more sane docs in turkey. but for that, unfortunately, there have to be more hiv positive people. doctors are afraid of it like a plague for now. in the last year turkey have one of the highest transmission rate. 5500 people in total, and 1000 of them only in last year! and i am sure lots of unaware positive as well.

[Miss Philicia]

Oh, they do blood work before routine surgeries here too. I was just using the emergency room to illustrate a larger point.

[songs06]

so are they also use different material for surgery as well? i mean, for better protection.

i ve heard most of the time, they say they don't have right surgery materials for this kind of surgery. and send patient to another hospital, and it goes like that one doc to another. there was a guy 2 years ago, needed a knee surgery and went 5 different hospitals. and finally got his surgery via public attention. it is really scary to finding yourself in this kind of situation. when your privacy totally damaged at this point

something i find weird is, they take it easy when it comes to hepatitis c, even tough it is more infectious. i think it is all about AIDS-phobia, and obvious ignorance.

[Valmont]

I had some dentist matter a few months ago.  My dentist only wanted to see me as her last patient.  It bothered me till I realized she desinfects everything BEFORE I go...  After talking a little, it is clear for me that it is easier for us as HIV infected people to get something than to give HIV to other people with their instruments...  I´m in Ecuador.

With a dentist that have a clean room and manage properly innocuity procedures, you should not have any problem...  This story about that "they don´t have the good instruments" sound me very strange and these docs seem to have some problems in regard to HIV, here it is not uncommun to find doctor with these kind of matter...

In Turkey, it probably exists some HIV infected people associations, why don´t you call them (you don´t even need to tell them your name) and ask them for some good dentists references, they will probably be able to help you...

[songs06]

well, turkey is a big country as landscape, and people who live in big cities usually don't have problems. also population is 70 millions. there is only one HIV activist group who might have suggestions. but well there is not any hiv friendly doctor who live in the other part of the country. especially in the smaller cities people have problem about privacy.

and the "not good tools" part is just an excuse to send HIV positive patient to another hospital. every city hospital have good tools for HIV, HCV, HBV positive patients. they are just afraid of "needle stick" accident and prophylaxis for a month.