A Stitch in Haste

We’ll soon find out:

Daniel Richardson was referred to HealthSouth Provo and had his [ulcerated toe] surgery scheduled for December 2004, but then it was cancelled. The suit says that one of the doctors who referred Richardson for surgery said that “no scrub techs would do the surgery and it was the policy of HealthSouth Provo Surgical Center not to accept HIV-positive patients.”

According to the lawsuit, the surgical center and physicians violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, and it seeks unspecified actual and punitive damages and asks the court to permanently prevent the defendants from denying treatment to HIV-positive patients.

This lawsuit caught my eye because I had been chatting with a coworker recently about a book he’s reading on the great influenza pandemic of 1918. Apparently the pandemic took a very large toll on doctors and nurses who treated the infected.

If I were a health care professional, I’d probably be far more concerned about airborne diseases such as the flu and tuberculosis than with HIV, even in an operating room. I don’t know what it takes to become a “scrub tech,” but there certainly seems to be an overdose of ignorance here.

On the other hand, one wonders whether the Americans with Disabilities Act was really meant to cover people with diseases such as HIV (or the flu, for that matter). What does “reasonable accommodation” mean in an emergency room or operating room? The law was meant to address employment, housing, education and similar scenarios, but how do you tell a doctor to change how he delivers health care? Speaking strictly in legal terms and not ethical, does it make any sense to tell health care professionals that they must treat anyone and everyone, and if they don’t like it then they should just quit?

Hat tip to Kevin, MD.

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In a somewhat-related story, an HIV+ man who pleaded guilty to attempted murder for spitting and biting at NYC police officers has been sentenced to 13 years in prison:

Murray pleaded guilty Aug. 8 to five counts of attempted murder in exchange for the 13-year sentence. He could have been sentenced to up to 25 years in prison on each count if he had been convicted after a trial.

Murray, arrested in April 2003 on a charge of promoting prostitution, was being processed at a police station when he spat saliva and blood into the faces of several officers.

One of the officers, Sgt. Margaret Timlim, said outside court that she was not infected by Murray’s spew but had undergone a debilitating year of therapy with anti-AIDS drugs to make sure.

Clearly a malicious, sociopathic man. But the question remains — if the avian flu or some other airborne pandemic reaches the U.S., are we going to start charging people with attempted murder for coughing? Or is HIV just “somehow different”?