I currently work at a Job and Day Training program in Las Vegas, Nevada. I am a Direct Support Staff who assists adults with disabilities create art. During the day I also will assist some of them with first aid, bathroom needs, and feedings. One day of the week we have a free day where we sometimes do spa days (painting nails, makeup, hair, etc.) with our female clients.
I have known for months now that a female client of mine has been sick. We were told that she had cancer, and I made the assumption that it was affecting her stomach or liver because of how often she needs help in the restroom. Occasionally she makes comments about being sick, but doesn't understand what is wrong. She is just upset that she can't always eat what everyone else eats and she gets very upset when her home staff (she lives in a group home) tells her that she is sick.
On a weekly basis I have to help her change her depends. I wear gloves but we do not have a proper way to dispose of bio-hazard waste, so all of our gloves and her depends go into the trash. I have to constantly remind her to wash her hands after she cleans herself, even though she gets upset and tells me she NEVER washes her hands. The cleaning crew at our location are clients with disabilities. They usually take out all of our trash and clean surfaces unsupervised. We have to constantly remind them how important it is to wear gloves, but a lot of times they forget. So occasionally they will push down the trash with their bare hands.
My female client who is sick has also on occasion needed help with first aid, and on spa days us girls will paint our nails and trim our nails. Staff uses all their personal nail polishes and tools for this. This client has also asked me to go through her purse to help her find something she has lost on occasion (she has a hard time seeing.) I don't wear gloves when I help her with her purse, and I have touched chewed gum & most recently a tissue that had blood on it. It never occurred to me before those occasions to wear gloves while helping her with that & obviously I do now.
I prefaced all of this to note HOW OFTEN and easily germs and disease can get spread at my work place.
Today was a free day and another staff was helping my client paint her nails. Our supervisor ran over to that staff and told her the client absolutely wasn't able to get her nails painted and told her to throw the nail polish bottle away. This was after we used it on other clients. She informed her that the client had Hepatitis B and she wasn't allowed to tell anyone. Obviously this other staff told me, because I am this clients staff.
I WAS ABSOLUTELY LIVID. As far as I know, my supervisor has known about this for quite sometime and kept this from us. She specifically did not want any staff to know, and would have kept it from us forever had today's events not happened. I understand more about Hepatitis B after doing some research today, and I believe if staff had been notified immediately this would not be as serious as it is right now. We could have learned what hep b was, been trained on how to protect ourselves and clients, and potentially gotten vaccinated for it because I know for a fact not all our staff is vaccinated and I'm not sure about the clients.
There's one more thing.... we do not get paid much more than minimum wage at our job. Which means a lot of us (myself included) donate plasma outside of work to make ends meet. You cannot donate plasma if you have been exposed to hep b, had a recent vaccine for hep b, or EVEN been exposed to another person who has had a recent vaccine for hep b. I have been donating plasma twice a week this whole time without realizing that I could have exposed others.
This is not the first time my job has put its employees in danger (hiding black mold was another time) and I have never considered taking action before because I had sympathy (they are a non-profit). I am going to sit down and talk with my supervisor on Monday. I am thankful that I have a full weekend to inform myself about hep b, and calm myself. I would just like to know if there is any possible legal action I should be taking?
TL;DR supervisor at work has lied to us about being in contact with hep b for a while, is there anything I can do to hold them responsible?
Submitted May 04, 2019 at 04:49AM by nmfatale http://bit.ly/2IX0kyx
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